3 yr old americauna hen has started CROWING...??

[AbbyDog]

Help! Two out of the past four mornings, I have been awoken (through my earplugs) at 5:40 am by the strangled sound of a...ROOSTER! I live in a dense neighborhood with the nearest house next to mine probably just about the legal distance away from my coop (that's twenty-five feet). My oldest hens are three years old. I know which one is the culprit as I dashed out of bed, ran outside, flung open the coop door and caught her in the act both days. She, Blondie, was sort of cute, with her beak all pursed, but there is NO WAY that I will be able to get away with it. Both times, I grabbed her off the perch and tossed her out into the yard and she stopped. But I was not planning on getting out of bed until 7 as i went to bed after 12, and now here it is 6 am and I am AWAKE.

This hen has not been laying for maybe a month or two. Do you think that she is really 'crossing over' into manhood or is it merely some sort of aggressive/dominant behavior towards another bird? I do have one of her flock mates, a RIR same age, who is slowing succumbing to internal laying/ascites and the rest have started to beat the crap out of her. I separate them during the day but at night let the sick one back into the coop as she really wants to sleep in a nest box and I figure why not, as a dying wish. I wonder if Blondie is waking early and is demonstrating her displeasure with this arrangement? Any chance of Blondie going back to being a mild-mannered hen who lays a beautiful greenish egg??

 

[JerseyGiantfolk]

Sometimes the most dominant hen will crow, if you had a rooster she'd probably not crow, and let him do the job. My hen did that when she needed to lay an egg, and when the rooster left to go to a show.

 

[AbbyDog]

This hen is not #1 but there has been some jockeying for position recently. I am thinking that the disturbance of having one of them sick and being moved in and out has created some unrest...if I could rally the strength to 'cull' poor Bonnie, the rest of them might settle down a bit...? Bonnie is the one with ascites, not the crower.