Aggressive Baby Chicks and How to Stop the Behavior

This is a very informative article. I have never had a problem with aggressive chicks, but I have found this article very helpful if I do ever have a problem. The update was also helpful and interesting.

Nice well-written article!

4 years ago we picked up 2 DNA-sexed female Silkie chicks from a local Silkie breeder. One chick was so obnoxious and hyperactive she peeped all the way home from the breeder and kept picking at the other calmer chick. She was aggressive all through her juvenile, pullet, and adult growth. The calmer chick figured how to stay out of her way as much as possible. And as an adult when the aggressive hen goes "broody" her behavior is worse and actively chases the calmer Silkie around the yard. Sorry - but nothing in this article helped our situation to calm down an aggressive bird. We have an old Dominique hen integrated with the 2 adult Silkie hens and the Dominique will peck at the aggressive Silkie hen and then the aggressive Silkie hen turns around and pecks at the calmer Silkie hen. It's like watching 3 circus clowns!

Tapping the aggressive chick on the back to stop her obnoxious behaviors never worked, isolating her never worked, trimming her crest feathers to see better to stop her hyper-sensitivity didn't work, isolating the other calmer Silkie to gain confidence to stand up to the agggressive Silkie didn't work, having the older Dominique hen act as a referee didn't work! Ugh!

I'm sure this article helps a lot of owners with chicks but it just never worked for us

I had a chick that would pull on the toes of other chicks. Not peck, pull, and pull so hard he'd tip the other chicks off their feet. He'd go one to another, like on a mission. I would sit there for half an hour watching him, tapping his back when he'd do it, and I could tell when he was going to do it so tapped him before he did it. I'd leave for a couple hours and come back to two chicks with bleeding toes, so that wasn't working. Hubby finished building the new brooder and it wasn't that the old one was too small, but this one was double the size. That did it! Thanks for the ideas. That was about 6 months ago and I forgot to rate your article that helped me.

Thank you! I had these issues with my last hatch. This hatch I was ready for it! lol

Very informative; I will also bookmark this. I just saw some pretty ferocious bullying by one chick in a special-order brooder at my local feed store, and was wondering how to handle that if it happened with any chicks I might order in future! This chick was assaulting and pecking away other chicks trying to reach the feeder; there was lots of room in the brooder so others were just going around to eat at the other side, but the bully made runs at them, too. It didn't care what color the other chicks were (looked like about 20 of them, various breeds). Now, should this happen, I'll have an arsenal of techniques to deal with it - thank you!

Very helpful and informative article. I do wonder if the blue light had any effect

Very informative and practical article!

Fascinating information about chick behavior.

Another excellent article from a very knowledgeable member.

Great article! Very helpful!

Very helpful article, with lots of practical and easily implemented suggestions. I am bookmarking this, just in case! Thank you!

All good advice!

Great article!

My chicks are all females, so the male theory won't work.
I loved this article, Thank you for the great ideas!

Great information that I know will come in handy down the road. I love ideas to stop said aggression without showing more aggression towards the problem chick, which is what I've seen in other articles (not on BYC). Thank you!

You have covered the causes for obsessive behaviours and aggression nicely. Your recommendations are useful and laid out in a cohesive manner, making it clear what steps to begin with. Great advice! Thanks!

Very helpful article and update!

It's always good to have new ideas for solving problems with a flock. Mimicking the mother's behavior works for a lot of animals, so why not chicks?

I use the heated brooder plates for chicks and that seems to solve the problem, or prevent it. They have a place to hide from their aggressive hatch mates and there is no light, so they have a natural wake sleep cycle. The chicks seem calmer and more content using the heat plate.