Yesterday one of my little Australorps laid her first egg :-) Sadly it got broken in the mad dash for the door at feeding time but she laid another one today so I'm happy. First eggs right at Easter is pretty cool. One odd thing though - in the half hour before she laid this mornings eggs she had some of her fluffy bum feathers pecked out my other chicken. Why would this happen when there has been no feather pecking up until now?
1st Egg and Feather Pecking
Congratulations on your Aussie's first eggs! How old is she? I wonder if the other chickens were just aware that something was about to happen and became curious. Have the others laid, or is she the first?
Thanks catscan. It was a very exciting moment. She is 22 weeks young and the first to lay. As we were watching her just before she went back in the coop we could see her tail feathers kind of separating from her fluffy feathers and we figured she was 'flexing her muscles' in preparation. LOL I wonder too whether the other chicken could see something they thought was worth a peck. I just would hate it to continue and turn into a problem.
Congrats on the egg.
Hopefully the pecking is just curiosity, but if it continues there are two reasons I know of that makes them peck one another.
1) they are overcrowded and bored. (happens if they are in a small cage or have nothing exciting to peck...grass, bugs)
2) they lack protein
Overcrowding isn't the problem. Two chickens that free range the whole back yard all day long couldn't ask for more space. The only time they are in close confinement is when I shut them in their coop at night.
I've heard that Protein can be a cause of pecking? How much protein do they need on top of their layer rations?
I'm thinking that its more out of curiousity. This morning the non-laying chicken was given a right telling off by the laying chicken for interrupting her while she was settling into the nest. I ended up shutting the non-layer out of the run until it was all over :-)
It may be just curiosity. And I really didn't think it was overcrowding :) Just listed the two I knew of.
I'm really not sure how much protein they need, but if you throw them leftovers with meat it will help. I know ours love that.