Help! My Rhode Island Red Hen is Aggressive

Hi everyone. My hens are 5.5 months old. I have a laying Red who is pecking at the tail feathers of my 2 Americaunas and one of my Buffs. One hen is missing lots of feathers. What is this and is there anything I can do? The Americauna most impacted seems to be segregated from the other 5 now.

I'm not surprised.

Rhode's are mean,big bullies.All I can tell you is to,separate her.She may be broody,but it doesn't sound like it.I would take the EE out and place her in another pen,and let her grow her feathers back.The Rhode island should not be able to see the others.You could reintroduce her as a new girl.Therefore she will be the 1 being picked on,just not near as bad as what she's doing.

I have had Rhode Island reds' before,and they were huge bullies,doing exactly what your reds' doing.

Let's look at housing and diet....might find a cause to correct.

Tell us more about the size of your coop and run(feet by feet)...pics help a lot.

What all are you feeding?

Thanks for inquiring. Run itself is 10 ft by 11ft and coop inside run is a Smart Coop... Around 3x3ft. Two roosting poles in there. Then a separate section on coop with two raised lay boxes that seem to be working well. They always lay in those boxes. The run is under a huge oak so lots of shade. They've always seemed content til now. I feed laying crumble with extra protein but I think I was providing too much scratch! I just stopped doing this but I would toss a few handfuls per day to them. I try to supplement with fruit/veggies but not daily.

That coop is way to small for 6 birds. 3 x3 is 9 square feet or 1 1/2 Sq per bird. Their overcrowded which can cause fighting. A general rule of thumb call for 4 sq per bird. You need a bigger coop or cut you flock by half. for 6 birds your coop needs to be at least twice that size and triple would work better for days when it was raining or winter days when they don't get out much. Overcrowded birds tend to fight and pick on each other.Their diet sounds ok just cut back on the scratch some more. Scratch is a treat not a requirement, I have cut my flock down to 13 birds and the get 2 handfuls of scratch a day.

Agrees coop too small for 6 and crowding could well be the problem.

Not sure about your feed....what is "laying crumble with extra protein".



I like to feed a 'flock raiser' 20% protein crumble to all ages and genders, as non-layers(chicks, males and molting birds) do not need the extra calcium that is in layer feed and chicks and molters can use the extra protein. Makes life much simpler to store and distribute one type of chow that everyone can eat.

The higher protein crumble also offsets the 8% protein scratch grains and other kitchen/garden scraps I like to offer.

Calcium should be available at all times for the layers, I use oyster shell mixed with rinsed, dried, crushed chicken egg shells in a separate container.

Animal protein (mealworms, a little cheese - beware the salt content, meat scraps) is provided during molting and if I see any feather eating.

Update. Segregation has begun. I'm moving the bully hen to her own coop & run my husband made. I rubbed Peck No More on EE chickens. Didn't seem to deter my Red from fetting at them at ALL!?! Crud. So a week alone in the other run then reintroduced to the hens. Does this sound right? We are expanding the coop now based on suggestions here. Keep in mind their run is very large and they all did great together up until the red started laying. I don't close them in the coop at night but husband suggested I start doing this to train them into settling down and finding their own sleeping areas. Geez. Darn Red is making life tough for the coop. Any and all suggestions welcome.

It's good to have an oversized coop for the reasons the prior contributors posted, but I've also noticed my birds all have different preferences between where they hang out during the day. Some of my more skittish birds prefer to stay in the coop most of the day and scratch around in there, while others will venture out into our gigantic run area.

I have an 8 x 8 x 8ft tall coop, with two doors. I have three perches that extend across the 8 foot width all at different heights. Adding the second door makes a huge difference for birds attempting to flee a bully. I have 13 birds living in the coop/run area and haven't really encountered too many issues.

My littler birds that I've integrated into my flock really like the second door and use it to their advantage to make a quick getaway when they see one of the jersey giant hens coming (the mean girls for now - I've only had them coexisting with the smaller birds for about three weeks now - and the process was gradual)...

I also have a smaller coop with an attached run inside the big run (the smaller coop is 3x3; the little birds have the option to go in there if they want).

Anyway, sorry for the rambling...it's always better to have a bigger coop than really what's needed, even if you have a large run.