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Posted by Judy
on 7/3/2009, 10:20 am, in reply to "Re: Chicks Pecking"
76.22.202.201
I agree that crowding is a big factor. Keeping the birds in the dark may slow their development of social order as well as laying. Once they are feathered, for most breeds, you can sort out your cockerels by feather-sexing. Not with so-called "hen-feathered" varieties, though, in which the males develop feathers of the same shape that the pullets do. But even with the males removed, chicks may pick. You've certainly taken severe measures to stop them, Dick, and you see it's not entirely effective.
You can add toys to distract some of them. Cardboard boxes with holes cut in the sides, strips of orange peel hanging in the enclosure (they don't actually eat them, but they're attracted to the color and movement and will peck at them instead of each other), crumpled paper balls, assorted branches propped along the sides for climbing and roosting. I read that someone made a swing from a suspended branch in the enclosure, and the birds hopped on it, and learned to swing it back and forth.
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