Chick getting kicked out of flock

[CovertFarm]

My hen had 15 chicks this past September and have been getting along great until recently. We gave seven of our older hens to family and have decided to keep the 15 that just hatched. Since we gave the hens away, the chicks are acting up. We still have the mother and two older hens, but the chicks, now four months old, are picking on one single sibling and injuring it badly. The chick has been kind of cast out. I keep the chick inside a lot now and take it out to graze, but after half and hour or so it starts getting pecked, clawed, and chased. What's going on?

 

[sourland]

Is it a cockerel, and are the cockerels starting to spar ?

 

[Yardmom]

By taking it out of the flock and then bringing it back it causes pecking order to be reastablished each time. It is like integrating over and over. I don't know what might have caused the original problem, but if the bird appears healthy try keeping the bird in a see no touch area instead of removing it.

 

[CovertFarm]

Is it a cockerel, and are the cockerels starting to spar ?

I'm not sure. We had 15 chicks so I'm sure there are some roosters in there. I haven't seen them behave like this to any other chicks, just this one.

 

[CovertFarm]

By taking it out of the flock and then bringing it back it causes pecking order to be reastablished each time. It is like integrating over and over. I don't know what might have caused the original problem, but if the bird appears healthy try keeping the bird in a see no touch area instead of removing it.

They're free range chickens, so I can try that but it might just end up being alone most of the day in the coop. The chick was severely injured. His beak is cracked and a deep hole was pecked in his throat. I'm surprised he survived.

 

[Mrs. K]

I don't know what is wrong, but this is not working. And I don't think it will work. When you remove the victim, how does the remaining flock act? If they get along, I would re-home this bird.

 

[CovertFarm]

I'll look into that. I know these things happen, I was wondering if anyone had the same experience.

 

[spiceholler]

We have one accidental rooster and decided to keep him. We've had him for about a year and he's pretty docile, except he's got one hen who is high in the pecking order that he's singled out. She submits to him and he pecks her in the neck. We've tried breaking up the "fight", but understand that we can't teach them what instincts are telling them to do.

For the past several months, it's gotten to the point that she stays away from the flock most of the time and I've seen her go way out of her way when she sees the rooster. (we free range.)

A few days ago, she was hiding out under our neighbor's porch when he decided to let his dogs out. His dogs have a pretty strong prey drive and chased her so she ran back over to our property. (we live in a three family cove) Anyhow, we checked her out and she seemed fine.

A few hours later we heard a kerfuffle in our back yard and sent our dog to investigate. He did some hard sniffs around the creek area trying to find a trail, but came up with nothing. At dusk, there was no sign of the old hen (Massachusetts) and we assumed the bobcat was back and must have gotten her. We left the door open a little longer and then finally closed it up. The next morning we found bobcat tracks up the mountain. It WAS weird that there were no feathers or no sign of a struggle. There's usually at least a few at the "scene".

The next day we mourned the loss of her and cleared out some vegetation around the property and made a plan to continue pitching our cat's waste (walnut litter) around the perimeter (we think this deterred the bobcat last year).

Then while we were just hanging out in the back yard, we looked up and there she comes, walking out of the woods. She seemed a little worse for the wear and had some apparent scratches on her neck so I brought her into our fenced garden for some snacks, water, and a melon and that brightened her up, so much so that she flew over the fence and hightailed it back to her hiding spot in the woods. To keep her safe overnight, we put her in the isolation box.

Later that night we checked on her. No hen in the box! I don't know how she did it but she had broken out and snuck into the coop to her perch way in the corner. The next morning we opened the coop and she ran away and we haven't seen her since.

Our thought is that she has been kicked out of the flock. We have tried looking for her but don't see any signs. I know her voice and tried calling for her but no response.

We want to let nature take its course, but don't want to support aggressive behavior. Thusly, we are considering removing the rooster from the flock as he appears to be the source of the problem and may continue to be a problem as we do have 15 young hens we plan to integrate into the flock (being raised by one of our broodies).

It's also possible that since this hen was one of the elders, she may have gracefully exited following her instinct. We hope she returns again as she had a wonderfully strong personality and she was one of the last remaining hens from our original flock and the first hen to jump onto my fingers.