Pecking and Feeding

Hi Everybody,

Please excuse the ignorance as I am new to keeping chickens.

I live in Sussex UK and have bought 4 point of lay Black Rocks (a
cross with the Long Island Red I believe).

Two problems - possibly related - not sure.

When we bought them we were advised to give them the same feed that
they were brough up on to start with a ground down dry 'layers mash'.
This they hardly touched so we bough some pellets. (Complete feed
again). This is something friends of ours have done with great
success. However, again, they don't seem to touch it.

We are feeding them other stuff - scraps, broad bean plants, old
cabbages, lettuces, corn, etc which they eat eagerly. But they dont
touch the pellets.

The main problem (related?) is a pecking problem. One of the chickens
was very badly pecked with a big bald and bleeding patch. We seperated
her into a pen of her own for a few days to heal up and bought a
German spray for anti-pecking.

I have now re-introduced her and removed the worst offender into
isolation for five days and sprayed the rest. The remaining two seem
to be picking on the re-ntroduced one again.

Am I tackling this right - is there something else we should be doing
- is the feeding issue the problem or is that a seperate issue?

Any help would be great.

As a matter of interest I spent some time talking with the first one
we took out; just soothing words for a few evenings. When I
re-introduced her she looked very pittifully at me and actually jumped
up onto my arm and snuggled into me. I was stunned. Guess shes a pet
now - not just a chicken!
.

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