hopetofinish Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 It has been almost 10 months since my neighbour and I got chickens. They are just about on the opposite side of the fence, and we got the girls from the same place. My chooks have been great, no medical problems, good little layers and a general joy to have around. My neighbour has not been so lucky. We both bought lovely walk in runs, she had a wooden hutch I went for the Eglu. She got 12 chickens, I got 4. I put cozy coop (?) and she went for bark on the floor. Her problems started very quickly when the chooks started really attacking each other and deep wounds were inflicted on 2 of the birds. After much deliberation she decided to reduce her numbers and 4 chickens were retired to the country to live at my sisters. Since this time all the remaining birds have lost their bum feathers, and have remained bald, then 1 got taken by a fox. She then decided to change the bark to the same flooring that I have as it stays very clean and dry (we have covered runs). The latest drama is that now one of the chooks is pulling out the feathers on its chest and she says it looks awful. The chickens since the fox attack are kept in the run all day (it is massive), and it has bales of hay to jump on, swinging veg, and no end of expense has been spent. She even changed the really expensive wooden hutch to a cube! Any advise on what to do about/reasons for the latest episode would be much appreciated as it would be such a shame after all this expense (talking thousands here) if she gave up. Many thanks HTF - the lucky neighbour! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
