Agressive/bully hen What can I do?

[Cynthia 085]

Hi,
I have an agressive hen. Shes the boss in the coop. I live in the city and can't have roosters.
My flock consist of 4 standard size Cochins, 2 silkies, and two sultans.
One cochin is very mean as said she is the queen and thus mean to the point that she almost killed one of my sultans.
What can I do to calm her down? She pecks, won't let this particular hen eat, and is a bully.
If she won't get better I will have to find her a new home. She is a sweet girl to me, but not to the rest of the flock.

 

[Cynthia 085]

Please help. Thank you Cynthia

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

If u have a dog crate and can separate her for a few days we're she can't see them and just have her separated for about a week and then reintroduce her to the flock

 

[Cynthia 085]

Ok I can try that for sure. I have a large cage with enough space for her.

 

[Cynthia 085]

Why can't she see them?
I feel terrible doing this, but she almost killed one of my chickens by not letting her eat.
The most I locked her up was a day and she got better, but began to be a bully again

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

Because if she can't see them then she will become not apart of the flock and then she will have to be reintroduced to the flock and if she will remain top of the pecking order then she will have to work her way back up I had just helped someone on this same topic and his hen is now calm and not an aggressive little thing

 

[Cynthia 085]

Thank you!
Ok I will try that.

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

Hope she gets better

 

[aart]

Separating the bully is one possible solution......but more info is needed to find the root of the problem.
But you still have to deal with re-integrating the bully back into the flock....and other issues might be part of the problem.

Did all these birds grow up together?
When did the bullying start?
How big is your coop/run(feet by feet)?
What exactly are you feeding?

 

[azygous]

I agree with aart, more info would be helpful.

From time to time, I've had to cope with a bully, and it's not fun trying to figure out why they behave that way, and it's so sad to see the others terrorized.

The first thing to try is to remove the bully from the flock temporarily so the pecking order is forced to shift. Then when you bring the bully back, her rank in the pecking order has changed, hopefully, and she won't be The Queen. Also, a week of "time-out" can interrupt her bad behavior and she may forget about the joys of terrorizing the smaller chickens.

Often, increasing the space in the run can go a long way to resolving bulling issues. If you add tree stumps and other places to perch, having places to retreat can help.

When that fails, there is pinless peepers to try. It will alter the forward vision of the bully so she can't see her target as well.

If that fails, as all of the above have in my flock with one persistent bully, you may need to create a sub-flock and give the bully and her cohorts their own space where they won't disrupt the rest of the flock. This has works very well for my flock. It required adding a run onto the one side of the coop and partitioning that coop off from the others so the bully group can't start fights and throw their weight around.

Or you can simply eat the bully.