Hen Pecked

When you have chickens, you realize pretty quickly that a lot of the idioms that you hear about chickens are true and they came about because somebody watched their behavior.  These are just a few that we have observed from our ladies.

"Feathering her nest"  - Seen it
"Mad as a wet hen"   - Seen it.  They don't like being held and getting their backside scrubbed down.  That's another story.
"All cooped up" - Yep  
"Don't lay an egg" - Have you heard them when they lay?
"Pecking order"  - Definitely a social order with them.

This past month, we have added another one to our list.

"Hen pecked"

No feathers around her neck

About a month ago as I was out in the coop taking care of them I noticed that one of the ladies was missing her feathers around her neck.  I thought that was strange and tried to figure out what was wrong with her.  Mites?  Maybe, but none of the other chickens were having problems.  Molting?  No, they don't molt like that.  Sick? Maybe, but she was acting fine and other than seeing gaping wounds or broken legs, I'm not sure what to look for.

I couldn't quite figure it out.  As I kept thinking about it, it dawned on me that every time I go out to gather eggs, this same chicken is always in the coop, often sitting on the shelf, looking out the window.   That is strange.  They love their run.  I mentioned it to Scott and he wasn't sure what was wrong either.  He did mention that he threw the balding chicken out into the run recently and it freaked out and ran into a corner.  Red flag.

A few days later I was watching the rest of the ladies in the coop and I noticed another chicken that had bald patches.  All of a sudden, for no reason all of the other chickens started attacking it and yes, pecking and pulling out its feathers.  How mean!  That lady for some reason takes the abuse and still comes out into the run, even though these attacks happen often.  The one in the coop has just decided that it is not worth it any more.

So I did a little research and there aren't many options out there. 

1)Remove the bullies for awhile and then slowly add them back to the brood to hopefully disrupt their pecking order.  I can't tell which ones are the bullies and even if I did single them out where would I put them?
2)Find new homes for the bullied ones.   I'm pretty confident they would just start to pick on the next lowest one on the totem pole.
3) Provide more stimulation for them.  Really?  I have to entertain my chickens? That's a joke right?

There is a good chance that my chickens are bored.  Bored.  I guess that makes sense, because we don't let them out into the yard anymore because they are so destructive to the landscaping.  Their accommodations are quite luxurious for chickens though, but I guess it isn't enough for them.  It must be that my chickens are just gifted and need something more than just your average layer out there. :)

So, lately I have been taking a lot of greenery from the garden into the run for them to peck at, as well as throwing scratch in there daily.  Short of that I'm not sure what else one does to entertain a chicken.  Here's hoping they start to leave these 2 ladies alone.  If not, I'm not sure what my next step is.