Chicken puffing up feathers at cockerel.

[Skyler vaughan]

Recently one of my hens (Snowy) has started to fluff her feathers up at one of our cockerels, Larry. She makes herself really big and clucks whenever he comes near her, then he chases her until she’s out of reach. This has happened before and he ended up bullying her so we had to separate her from the flock for a few months and put her with the chicks. We found out he had pecked at the back of her head until it was bleeding so it got pretty violent.
That was around halfway through last year, and now she’s back in the flock but her and Larry, in the past few days, have started bickering again. My first thought was that she was broody and just being protective but she’s showing no other signs. Has anyone else experienced this?

Skyler

 

[sourland]

Sounds like pre broody behavior, and sounds like if 'Larry' doesn't soon start to grow up a recipe for Coq au Vin is in order.

 

[Skyler vaughan]

Sounds like pre broody behavior, and sounds like if 'Larry' doesn't soon start to grow up a recipe for Coq au Vin is in order.

Unfortunately we can’t eat him lol, the other hens are so dependent as we have 30 hens between two cockerels. Should I see if snowy will be mum to chicks? We’ve got some hatching right now and she might take interest.