Bully hens!

[AustralianRift]

I have a flock of six chickens. These chickens are let out at 10:30 every morning and free roam the farm.

There are Four existing hens and two have been brought in a little later. From the start, the existing four have pecked at the other two. It has been almost 6 months since they have introduced. At this point, the pecking can be for no other reason but bullying and dominance. There are two alphas, red and edna, they take it in turns to be the one to pin down turkey (one of the new hens) and pluck at her neck feathers. The other two hens will peck to get the newbies away from food but nothing as aggressive as Edna and red. Turkey and talula (turkey’s adoptive, bantam mother) roost separately from the flock, on the porch and don’t go into the coop at night. Once the hens are let out in the morning, the newbies will go into the coop so talula can lay, turkey lays either in a bush or in an area we are yet to discover.

I have the capacity to temporarily lock up two chickens, ideally I was hoping to lock up red and re introduce the newbies to the rest of the flock. After trying this today, I realised it wouldn’t work because talula is brooding and not very happy when I take her off the nest, she has also been locked up with the flock because while she is sitting on there, she is aggressive enough to protect herself. I also can’t block of the nesting boxes like I would like to (to stop her brooding) because we have a late layer that will go out and roam then come back in the early afternoon to lay.

This leaves poor turkey all by herself, being bullied by every member of the flock.


I am lost on what to do in this scenario and am open to your suggestions

 

[azygous]

Can you recall all the stories you've heard about the bully and the playground victim? The bullying stops when the victim decides not to be the victim any longer.

Believe it or not, this strategy works great with chicken bullies and victims. I wrote an article for BYC about how to go about rehabilitating a chicken victim. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/chicken-bully-chicken-victim-a-two-sided-issue.73923/ It can work wonders in as little as a day or two, but I've never had the transformation take longer than three weeks.

The idea is to help the victim learn self confidence again and she will then be able to stand up to the bully. Then the bully eventually stops the bullying.

 

[50-45-1]

You could try chicken blinders if the bullying gets vicious.
With chickens there is always a pecking order and i only intifear if true injury is happening.
I put a set of blinders on a hen that was a feather picker and she wore them for a month and it stopped her pecking ever since. The blinders are harmless to the chicken, but will stop pecking and i would think bullying emeadiatly. Not expensive, i ordered mine thru Amazon.

 

[50-45-1]

You could try chicken blinders if the bullying gets vicious.
With chickens there is always a pecking order and i only intifear if true injury is happening.
I put a set of blinders on a hen that was a feather picker and she wore them for a month and it stopped her pecking ever since. The blinders are harmless to the chicken, but will stop pecking and i would think bullying emeadiatly. Not expensive, i ordered mine thru Amazon.
View attachment 1694370

 

[AustralianRift]

I’m going to start implementing this as of tomorrow, thanks for your timely reply. Fingers crossed!

 

[aart]

I also can’t block of the nesting boxes like I would like to (to stop her brooding)

I am about to break out the breaker crate here too.

My experience goes about like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop or run with feed and water.

I used to let them out a couple times a day, but now just once a day in the evening(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two. Or take her out of crate daily very near roosting time(30-60 mins) if she goes to roost great, if she goes to nest put her back in crate.
Chunk of 2x4 for a 'roost' was added to crate floor after pic was taken.