Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[paul goodey]

Hello to all, i was having some trouble with some new hens that i brought some months ago, they started attacking each other around the vent area causing some bad injurys, i tried everything including violet spray, vaseline,tea tree oil you name it but nothing worked, i was even at the point of either culling them or giving them away to separate homes. Now when we first got these new ones we allready had some battery hens which we tried to introduce but the new hens were too young and my battery hens just attacked them and there was some blood to say the least as they just stood there not nowing what to do with a battery hen hanging on to them for dear life

So we had to build another space to keep the warring parties away from each other.

Anyway some months have passed and now the new hens are that bit older and bigger and we had just cleared some more space for them to run around in, the sun was shinning the other day and my new hens were doing what they do and i looked across into the space where i keep my battery hens and these little sad eyes looked across at all the space the new hens had so i thought what the hell lets them them out as well and see what happens, now i knew that it wasnt going to be love at first sight and i was right as the battery hens went straight on the attack, but after alot of fighting my battery hens now rule the roost with everyone else in there place, the pecking has nearly stopped between the new hens and if one gets out of line the batt hens are there to kick butt. The reason we think the new hens started to attack each other is proberbly reaching sexual maturity and being all young there was no one to take the leading roll. These battery hens we have are out numbered 2 to 1 and are half the size of the new ones and with hardly any feathers they dont look much to look at but boy oh boy dont mess with a battery hen

[The Dogmother]

Glad to hear that it's working out Paul.

 

Intros can be fraught - it's always best to buy in new stock that is a similar size to the existing lot and not alot younger. Ex-batts are always hard to integrate with other hens.. sometimes it just never happens, so well done to you for your patience, which paid off in the end.