badly behaved chicken pecking a biting humans

[Xtineart]

just wanted to update people to say she's been great recently. really well behaved. she pecked at me today for the first time in ages, I wasn't wearing any shoes round my girls for the first time ever and my bare toenails looked very tasty! She let me lift her today to let the builders next door give her a clap and a cuddle and she couldn't have been any sweeter. I think we are on track for this little madame to turn out a proper lovely lady.

 

[lazy gardener]

Glad to hear it, and thanks for the update!

 

[chooks4life]

Good to hear, hope things continue on a good path. Best wishes.

 

[reeney]

I like the idea of pinning them to the ground until they submit, that is a natural position for them to submit to a rooster if you are with out a roo to take care of the hens. Mine are so sex starved at the moment if I even come into the coop they all squat. Poor dears, but ohhh the eggs! I have one aggressive silverlaced wyndotte that is a biter, but I just push on her a bit until she backs up from me. She is only interested in food and weather I pet one of her buddies, she never goes after me unless I am petting one of my other wynndottes, if I pet an australorp it is no big deal to her. Crazy bird!

 

[lazy gardener]

Lately, I've been picking up the aggressors, and pushing their head down below their chest. They submit much more readily, and will hold head down very easily. This also keeps them in a submissive posture without so much concern about rooster response.

 

[Chris2015]

Hello-Sorry your girl "bites" I haven't posted lately as Monday the 5th, I fed the girls as usual, gave them water AND catfoood as a treat. Hubby came home 2 hrs. later and said that 1 of the girls was dead....I couldn't believe it! Sure enough, went out and there was the poor girl who had been picked on dead with her entrails pulled out! Her intestines were inside the coop and they were all outside! I was so mad! Heartbroken, we buried our baby and hen went inside where the cats were running fools.....and their boxes were over flowing.....someday life is like that.....

 

[chooks4life]

I like the idea of pinning them to the ground until they submit, that is a natural position for them to submit to a rooster if you are with out a roo to take care of the hens.

The female assuming the mating position isn't actually the same behavior as submitting to an alpha, but granted, for decades now it's been taught that female mating behaviors are 'submission in action', so many people still view them that way.

It's merely an indication of both her breeding condition/status (receptiveness) and her acceptance of that male.

Viewing female mating behaviors as submission leads to a lot of strife when people see a hen reject a rooster and then assume she's faulty. She's not, our husbandry methods and understanding of the species is often faulty.

Likewise they see a male leave a hen alone after he attempts to initiate mating and is rejected by a nonreceptive female, and then they assume he's faulty, he should have 'forced the issue' or 'not taken 'no' for an answer' they think --- but that's ignorant; he's not faulty.

Yet he still often pays with his life for not being 'virile' enough to coerce a non-receptive female to mate, just as many hens pay with their lives for being too 'dominant' when they exhibit normal mate selection and reproductive control behaviors, and so we select for abusive males that don't understand nor respect non-receptiveness, and overly submissive females that are resigned to crouching to allow mating they are not actually physiologically receptive to, just for the sake of not being attacked.

We've decreased instinct levels and social harmony by doing this. Now hens that are injured, ill, brooding, even dying, will often still automatically crouch for mating when approached even though it may be the end of them, and roosters often lack the instinct to understand a hen is not receptive at any given time he chooses to initiate. Many of these roosters will abuse hens that do not mate on demand. That's not natural for the species at all, it's an aberration we've bred into them like so many of their other social diseases.

Under the practice of AI the hens automatically squat when approached because for generations mating has not been something they naturally indicate they are ready for when physically receptive; instead it's something forced on them when the person decides it's time to do a batch. 'Learned helplessness' applies to such behavior, and it's a tragic state to reduce an animal or human to. Normal hens in possession of full and correct instincts are not resigned and will not cooperate like that and the same is true of the males they harvest semen from.

In non AI breeding programs under less natural circumstances, where genders are segregated and roosters only introduced for short periods of time, frantic and aggressive mating behaviors in the males are encouraged and bred on as the mating practice that best suits that husbandry method. Aggression is also often combined with mating because gender segregation encourages that, with both genders kept under such methods tending to exhibit gender confusion in terms of how they treat one another, in ways that never occur in non-gender-segregated flocks.

Hens from backgrounds like that also squat when rapidly approached, and will often also squat when humans or vehicles approach as well, since sudden mating sprees like that don't give them time to identify what or who, or make choices about their mates or only invite when receptive; their only 'choice' is to just cooperate lest they be attacked or have it go rougher on them. It's got nothing to do with sex starved, everything to do with warped instincts adapted to the situations we keep them under.

Normal males and females do not compete with one another for dominance, having separate hierarchies, and dominance over the other gender is never enforced or fought over. They're not in competition with one another. No normal rooster ever forces hens to 'submit'.

Watch some videos of AI being done sometime if you want a good illustration of the aberrant behaviors. The practice of AI results in both genders showing confused sexual behaviors, and AI in particular is often physically brutal on the females, sometimes fatal, as it involves penetration which is not natural to the species.

They waddle off in obvious pain, but then 'rattle' their feathers (shake off) because they do understand, this is what mating is these days. Some people who do AI say 'they rattle because they like it' but I've never seen hens waddling in such pain before, it's not natural at all. Even when mating with a male under normal circumstances, the rattle doesn't indicate enjoyment, just shows recognition of a successful mating; even hens with bones broken during mating will do that rattle if the mating was successful, whereas if he failed to mate they won't.

It's easy to confuse acceptance with enjoyment for some people, and resignation with consent and some kind of endorsement of the correctness of a procedure or husbandry method. It's quite unfortunate for the animals involved.

Imagine if we applied our ideas of chicken breeding to other species. The amount of deaths and maulings we'd have. If we'd selected for the same behaviors in male dogs, for thousands of years we'd have been culling male dogs that respected non-receptive females rejecting them, and instead selecting for sexually vicious animals that respond to rejection by brutalizing one another, so mating is more like fighting instead and often results in serious, sometimes fatal damage to one or both parties. Some flocks live under nothing less than horrendous social conditions because of outdated, woefully incorrect ideas of chicken behavior and society.

In other species including other avian species, the majority of people understand the female will cooperate when receptive and a male that tries to aggressively force the issue on non-receptive females is not only aberrant but is a liability, and needs to be managed at the least but more often just culled. In chickens though, we have this bizarre consensus on what's normal; social disease is normal. The general view of chicken reproductive behaviors is still back in the dark ages, it hasn't kept pace with what we understand about mate selection and normal social behaviors in this species or any other species. We perpetuate unhealthy social disorders thinking it's normal and then on top of that train animals according to this flawed concept.

I don't quite understand the whole 'force the animal into the mating position to assume dominance' idea, after all that is not how hens and roosters naturally determine nor exhibit submission and dominance between one another. An instinctively normal hen that refuses to mate with a rooster doesn't mate just because he jumped on her, being forced into the so-called 'submissive' position doesn't make her 'submit'. She's either receptive or not and either issues an invitation or not.

Some hens lack a lot of instinct and will issue invitations/assume receptive position to anything that approaches including humans, other species, inanimate objects like debris blowing in the wind, moving vehicles, things that move suddenly including shadows, etc... But that is not natural for the species, just a new normal we've brought about. (Really, when the crouch is a reflexive reaction brought about under prolonged multi generational duress and resignation, it can't be considered a true invitation nor indication of receptiveness, because it is neither).

I'm not 'having a go' at you or anyone who believes this brutal social structure is just natural to the species, I hope you understand, I am trying to describe the flaws in the rationale behind these destructive teachings so many people have learned.

Mine are so sex starved at the moment if I even come into the coop they all squat.

That's a trait I have only ever found in hens from lines that have had artificial insemination practiced on them. Commercial layers and pure breds especially from show lines are very prone to this, but other hens from more natural backgrounds never show it, because they are naturally enough only receptive to the male of their species, and only when they actually like that male as a mate choice. They do not squat for just any male, and will resist any male that attempts to initiate mating without invitation, and even the male of their choice will be rebuffed if he tries to mate when the hens are unreceptive.

No amount of rooster deprivation induces squatting for humans in hens that aren't of that type, and no amount of having roosters around stops squatting for humans in hens of that type.

It's a glitch in their minds caused by human interference in their reproduction. You see a lot of it in other species as well where we practice AI, over enough generations both males and females come to view humans as mates and will react sexually to humans, because their instincts have been confused, and with this comes social disorder, the main symptom of which is always increased aggression and violence.

Poor dears, but ohhh the eggs! I have one aggressive silverlaced wyndotte that is a biter, but I just push on her a bit until she backs up from me. She is only interested in food and weather I pet one of her buddies, she never goes after me unless I am petting one of my other wynndottes, if I pet an australorp it is no big deal to her. Crazy bird!

Yeah, crazy birds all right. But it's human management of them that's to blame, not the species itself nor its instincts.

Best wishes.

 

[chooks4life]

Hello-Sorry your girl "bites" I haven't posted lately as Monday the 5th, I fed the girls as usual, gave them water AND catfoood as a treat. Hubby came home 2 hrs. later and said that 1 of the girls was dead....I couldn't believe it! Sure enough, went out and there was the poor girl who had been picked on dead with her entrails pulled out! Her intestines were inside the coop and they were all outside! I was so mad! Heartbroken, we buried our baby and hen went inside where the cats were running fools.....and their boxes were over flowing.....someday life is like that.....

Sorry to hear it. This is one reason I cull against aggression of any type, it's rarely just focused on one target. An aggressive mentality finds expression somewhere, sooner or later.

Having said that, if the intestines were still there, the good news is your hens aren't obviously too cannibalistically inclined. If they had access to the intestines, that is. It might have been a predator rather than the other chooks.

Best wishes.

 

[scribsfarm]

I have a 4-5 week RIR that has bitten me while getting their feeder out of their brooder box to fill. The same hen or another has done it once before a few days ago. We have 6 RIRs and telling them apart isn't easy. I'd like to curb her/their biting asap while they're young. Both times have been in the morning when I check on em. Both times I've given her a stern 'No' but I'm not sure what to do. Any tips or advice? Thank you!

 

[IHC986]

I'm new to chickens. After reading your post, I am ASSUMING that it is not a good idea to try and have my hens pick scratch from my hand. Am I correct, or, am I missing something here?