My chicks are fighting??

[Turken1964]

Hello! As some of you have may known, I got some chicks! Pepper and Piper! Well, I was down in the garage with them, and they were in their coop. All of a sudden, they started fighting! Not just some gentle pecks, they started jumping on each other and pecking each other, like a serious fight! This really concerns me. Whats weird is, I took Pepper out to clip her wing, and when I put her back in the coop, Piper pecked at her a bit. This happens every time I take one of the chicks out and put them back in with the other. Is it possibly because the coop is to small? Is this a sign that they're ready to go out to the big coop? Or are they maybe just playing? Thank you!

 

[harmesonfarm]

It's possible they might just be starting to develop their pecking order and are testing each other, but i'm not really that experienced with chicks as this is my first year having them as well.

As far as is my understanding, if they do their jumping and stand offs, this is the pecking order / testing each other out happening. Feather pecking / plucking, eye pecking, etc. is bad behaviour and should be dealt with as soon as it's noticed.

We recently extended our brooder for the young ones, and to be honest I thought they were doing it because there wasn't enough room...but now they do it just the same but with more 'run' to it as they have a larger playing field. As long as there is no blood being drawn I believe it's okay and their just sorting things out.

Good luck!

 

[Turken1964]

It's possible they might just be starting to develop their pecking order and are testing each other, but i'm not really that experienced with chicks as this is my first year having them as well.

As far as is my understanding, if they do their jumping and stand offs, this is the pecking order / testing each other out happening. Feather pecking / plucking, eye pecking, etc. is bad behaviour and should be dealt with as soon as it's noticed.

We recently extended our brooder for the young ones, and to be honest I thought they were doing it because there wasn't enough room...but now they do it just the same but with more 'run' to it as they have a larger playing field. As long as there is no blood being drawn I believe it's okay and their just sorting things out.

Good luck!

I wasn't thinking about the pecking order while posting this. That actually makes a lot of sense! Thank you! Now I just have to get my chicks to get along with our hen, but thank you so much! Haha

 

[harmesonfarm]

no problem