Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Remember the post where I talked about my mean chickens?  Well it hasn't gotten better.  In fact it has gotten worse.  About half of my chickens have bald spots from being picked on and bullied.  And it is not just the ladies with beautiful plumage that are the ones inflicting the damage.  Some of the picked on ones are doing the same thing to some of the others.  I feel like they are reenacting Lord of the Flies in there.  They are so mean and it must stop!

I trolled around on some chicken forums and I found something that is supposed to solve this problem.  They are called Pinless Peepers.  Great name right?  They are pretty much blinders for the chickens that attach onto the nostrils.  The idea is that if they can't see what is directly in front of them, they will be less likely to pick on the others and pull out feathers.  In some respects since they can't see as well they lose their confidence to be the bully.

So this was the operation.  Scott took one of the bullied hens and put it in the run and made sure it wouldn't run back into the coop to hide.  I stood and watched to see who was the instigator in the attacks.  As soon as they started attacking I pulled them out of the run, wrapped her in a towel to keep her still, held her neck and Scott put on a peeper. So far we have four hens with peepers on.

According to everything I read, they are supposed to work really well.  However, as soon as Scott attached their new accessory and I put them back in the run,  they continued to harass some of the other chickens.  Today, I went out to check on them and not only did they continue to bully, they drew blood this time around. 

Look at that evil eye!

I really hope this works.  I feel bad putting these things on them, but this is getting out of hand.  If it doesn't work, we may have to thin our flock.