Chicken aggressive towards new chick

[wingless87]

Hey I was hoping some one could explain why our one year old golden comet was very aggressive towards a Six week old chick we have. She ran at it and tackled her.. We are newer to chickens and this is our first encounter with having both chicks and hens. We keep them separate, it happened when we were setting up a pen. Any insight would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Veer67]

That's a pretty common thing you'll see older chickens do. The hen is probably seeing the chick as an "alien" or intruder and attacking the poor thing. You should keep them separated until they are older. Here's a link of how to integrate new chickens to your flock: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-tohttps://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-to-your-flock-your-flock

 

[bugflipper]

Aggression is a hereditary trait. The simple solution if an adult is attacking a chick, just put it in the pot. No more worries.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Best time to integrate chicks with older hens is 16 weeks of age. You can sometimes get by with younger depending on their personalities, but older hens will kill chicks quite commonly if they are too young.