Are chooks racist?

[Poliwag]

I have 2 grey, 2 pure white and 1 ginger silkie chooks. They all seem to hang out with their own colour "coop mates". The 2 grey ones are always together and the 2 white ones as well. When I had my ginger rooster, him and my other ginger silkie would hang out together.

Why is this? Does anyone know? o.o

 

[La Mike]

??? Birds of a feather

 

[Mahonri]

Yeah, they flock together.

 

[australorp_breeder]

Get ready to hear this... When the election was going on I had chicks in a box in my bathroom. The chicks were like a week old, or something. One night I went into my bathroom to look at the chicks and all of the white ones were on the left of the box, the black ones on the right of the box, and the two black and white ones were in the middle!!!! I totally should've took a picture!

As with my older chickens, my black ones like to pick on any others of mine that aren't their color. I guess it could be a color issue, but sometimes chickens just like others that they grow up with too.

 

[La Mike]

That would have made a good pic

 

[OccamsTazer]

My chooks do that too! I worked at a pet shop in HS and I used always be a bit bemused at the big lovebird flight cage. They always segregated by color! There would be a perch full of peaches, a perch full of blues, etc. It was weird.

 

[Tala]

My REDstar is buddy buddy with my Rhode Island RED rooster

Of course the roo loves his white Leghorns too, but.... they DO tend to segregate on the roost, the Red 2 together and the 3 whites together.
Seemed like it was more noticeable when they were a bit younger.
As they have matured and lived together longer (they have been together since 3 day olds) it seems like the true pecking order takes over the roost now, and that overrides color. I saw the Red hen off to the side with a white hen tonight

My other birds, the black sexlinks and buff orps really can't tell, because they have an age difference and were purchased at different times, so they group together by age which just happens to ALSO be by color.

 

[Country Heart]

Mine tend to hang out by age - but they are all different colors and breeds.

 

[big greg barker]

Stupid as it sounds, I had to separate mine into 3 different pens by clor so they wouldn't kill each other even though they were all brooder mates

 

[gsim]

Had 24 brood-mates , 4 different breeds. Never saw it. They were all raised in same box, but I had to add 2 more boxes as they grew since my coop was not done yet. I did notice a RIR being bullied by two golden comets in one of the boxes, so I replaced the RIR with another GC and that fixed it. After they got into their coop, I kept them confined for another week while I finished my pen. After that, I noticed a runt Barred Rock who was limping. It never has gotten better, but I see no consistent bullying. No blood, so I thought it was a mid air collision or something. The runt does stay by herself a lot, but a part of that is not wanting to be knocked down while scrambling for treats. She has learned to go into the coop a bit early to get her spot on the roost. (I always carry her special treats and pick her up to feed her in front of the others) Twice I knocked a golden comet off of the roost and flipped off the light for bullying her as they settled in for the night. Seemed to stop it. I see them mixed everywhere a lot it seems. They sometimes cluster a bit, but not a solid and constant thing.