What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[Katto]

Hi (and apologies for the length of this post)

 

We lost one of our two hens , Alexis , to a fox last Sunday, she was free-ranging about 10 am and we were home, although inside the house. We only have a small garden and I thought they'd be okay but sadly not. No sign of Alexis other than one feather. Krystal was very distressed and had a nasty bite wound and large amounts of feathers missing, poor thing. After a trip to the vet and a some nursing she is doing really well physically and the wound has almost healed. Whilst she is happy when free-ranging (only when we are in the garden now) she is just pacing in the run . She isn't eating as many of her layers pellets as I would have expected, although merrily scoffs anything more interesting and behaves absolutely normally in the garden. I suspect she is very lonely and bored, particularly as she's being kept in the run more than she has been previously. We just have the eglu with standard run and I'm thinking of getting an extension. We aren't handy at all in terms of building a walk-in run so think that is the best I can do for now. I'm assuming the priority is to get her a companion, which I think would be okay to do by Friday as hopefully her recovery will be pretty much complete by then. So my questions are - do you think getting a new hen is the right thing to do this soon? Does anyone else have experience of a hen dementedly pacing at the wire when alone - and did getting a new hen help?

 

Thanks!

Katy

[Egluntyne]

She will need some company as hens don't do well on their own. I would give it a few days though, so that she can get over the trauma, and her wounds have a chance to heal.

[chicken bark]

Sorry to hear about Alexis.

 

I'm sure Krystal will be glad of the company in time. Hope she gets better soon.

[scarlettohara]

The same thing happened to me over Easter, I lot 2 of my 3. Scarlett also had a bite and was on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. We kept her in our conservatory in a dog crate and she used to batter on the door to be let out - we let her wander round the house I put her in her run on Tueday but bought her in at night until Thursday when I got 2 new chickens, I separated them initially (Scarlett was thrilled to see them - a bit of half-hearted pecking but nothing serious) but they just broke through and I left them, they slept together that night and have been happy and settled since - I have even had 3 eggs

[ISCA]

Sorry to hear that

 

I would recommend you get her a companion asap. Even better, get 2 more hens so that if you did loose another there would still be 2 left.

[Katto]

Thanks all very much for the advice. Well I actually got a bit ahead of myself, and after giving her a thorough check to be sure the wound was healed up decided to go for it and called to enquire about some chooks from a fab smallholding local to us. They had some so I went down and my daughter and I picked out a Sussex Ranger and a Blue Ranger. I popped them in the run, with some canes through it as suggested elsewhere on the forum. Krystal stopped pacing and started scratching around immediately. They are quite a bit smaller than her and managed to wriggle through my barricade (Oops! ). She seemed very pleased to see them and they all popped into the eglu as dusk came and are snuggled up together. Fingers crossed for the morning, if she shows signs of getting chopsy I'll reinforce the barricade. Was so relieved to see her behaving normally though. I pick up the run converter tomorrow as fortunately there was one for sale on here secondhand so feeling more positive now. Thanks for all your comments.

[Christian]

Glad to hear the newbies are settling in ok. Sometimes they do without any fuss

[ISCA]

Oh well done. I am sure they will all get along fine.