Beaten up hen

10 Mar 2011, 08:56

Hi all,

One of my gouldian hens has been continually beaten up by the four other hens in the aviary since the nest boxes were put in about 2 weeks ago. It has gotten that bad I have had to remove her from the aviary and into a hospital cage as she has had all her head and neck feathers plucked and is looking quite a mess. There are double the amount of nest boxes for pairs in the aviary but I think she just insists on putting her nose in other hens nest boxes hence the continual beating. Has anyone else had this happen before? I am thinking I will have to keep her out of the aviary for the entire breeding season?

10 Mar 2011, 10:17

Does each hen have a partner, or this hen a spare?

10 Mar 2011, 20:23

She does have a mate bluebutterfly, I only put even numbers of cocks to hens in my breeding aviary. It just seems that she is very unliked by the other hens, it's a real fizzer because I was really hoping to get some chicks from this pair as they are my only white breasted pair I have. I am not a fan of them but I will probably resort to a breeding cabinet for this particular pair this year, i would much rather aviary bred birds.

10 Mar 2011, 21:35

Roy wrote:I was really hoping to get some chicks from this pair as they are my only white breasted pair I have.

Ive just got eggs from my pair of white chests, first time for me too.
Got two other pairs going but the hens are PC so the young will be splits but it will work out well for next year.

10 Mar 2011, 21:47

Are the nest close together? At the same height? Can you move them further apart? To different heights?
LML

10 Mar 2011, 21:50

Good candidate for a cabinet , give the poor girl a chance to heal and hopefully breed . Nest positions may have something to do with it too as F/Breeder said .

They can be cruel buggers .

12 Mar 2011, 20:11

Yeah maybe the nests could be an issue although they are all about 300-400mm apart and some are a little lower than others but they are all on the same wall none facing each other. After thinking about it I thought maybe it could be because I acquired this particular hen from a different breeder as opposed to all the other birds in the aviary which most are mine? perhaps she has been segregated by all the others? Real fizzer nonetheless but I shall get a breeding cage organized in the next week or so for this pair as she is in prime breeding condition and ready to go. Thanks for the reply's guys

12 Mar 2011, 21:06

Sometimes when adding a new bird to an established colony it is best to re-locate them all to a different avairy at the same time. Not always easy. I only have 3 avairys, so everyone moves sideways. It seems to work.
LML

13 Mar 2011, 18:13

I am fairly new to the bird world. I have gouldians and last year one of the hens looked like a vulture. All of her head feathers, front and back were gone. I asked the breeder where I bought them from and he said that the others were attacking her, but as my aviary is inside my house and I can see them every time I walk past I thought I would have noticed her being attacked, but I didn't. I then read somewhere on a gouldian website that this can occur if she was too young to breed which made more sense as she was the only one of the pairs that produced babies. As soon as they fledged it didn't take very long at all for her to regain all of her feathers and she looks brand new again.