Chicken with a Grudge Update

[ernie85017]

I put Violet (the violent) in a cage on her own in the pen, covered with a sheet so she could not see the others and they could not see her. After 3 nights of this, I thot I;d give her a chance out. She wasn't out 2 minutes when she was up to her harassment of Vernie.
By the way, the minute I locked her up, all was peaceful in there. Preening, dust bathing, serenity.

So, now she is in a cage across the yard away from the girls and she will stay there for a week. I read that chickens forget after a week. I wonder what's going on in her little head? She doesn't cry to be back with them or try to get out of the cage. She has a perch, food, water, greens, all the comforts of home. Maybe I've made it too nice for her, she'll think she's the queen and not want to go back.

 

[chooks4life]

Vicious natured chooks have a mentally aberrant pattern that basically renders them sociopaths or psychopaths. Most of them are simply incompatible with normal peaceful chicken society. They will always persist with serving up unwarranted abuse and stress to the others. They're best suited to remaining inmates of an insane asylum populated with their own kind, with the normal chook society living free beyond their reach, lol.

Quite literally, you can spot a mentally aberrant chook with a vicious bent from hatching onwards in the worst cases, and from juvenile stages onwards for the rest, almost as a golden rule, once you're familiar with the sometimes deceptively mild warning signs. They just have that mentality.

Many people try rehabilitating and retraining them, sometimes with some success, depending on whether their violent behaviors were neurotic or had some more motive behind them than just lashing out because they can. For example some hens turn bully when frustrated by overcrowding. Some however are outright cannibals, obsessed featherpickers, or just run a nonstop loop in their mind directing them to seek out and bash other chooks.

The worst cases can't be helped except with an ax, but, they can sometimes learn to show more respect to other chooks when in with their own kind, though that will always remain a quite violent little microcosm of chicken society which thankfully does not represent the whole.

Good luck with her.

 

[ernie85017]

chooks4life: I didn't realize loony chickens existed. I am mystified why she would suddenly - truly suddenly, one morning I heard a ruckus and thought a cat was harassing them - start after just one hen. I can't figure it out.
She's not making objections in her new digs, but last night when I shined a flashlight on her after I got home from work, she seemed a bit ****** at the size of the perch I provided her.
Wish I understood what was going on with her.

 

[chooks4life]

Anything with a brain can suffer malfunctions of its purpose or working state, including warped and illogical reaction and behavioral patterns as a result. No brain out there is a perfect machine and there isn't a reasonable explanation for every single behavior out there, despite what some behavioralists/ethologists believe. Sometimes you just have to accept that the animal is deranged.

Derangement is very, very common and usually transient, because the proper function of the brain is based on everything from environment to genetics to diet and life experiences, and more factors than that too. Toxicity and diet are the two top drivers of faulty behavior, I think.

Some are permanent derangements and these are easily bred on if they're severe enough. The more serious and long-term the fault the more likely it is to now just be a feature of that family line, unfortunately. An animal's habits are in some form passed on to its offspring, if it survives long enough to have them. Under human intervention and care many deleterious behaviors are passed on since natural selection no longer occurs, and is no longer removing the faulty ones.

Since she suddenly turned, it's possible that other hen hurt her deliberately or accidentally, or, maybe, she was bitten by a spider or snake and the toxicity has damaged her brain a bit. It's common enough, behavior changes due to toxicity are very common indeed. Some are transient and the individual will recover, others aren't. If it happened a while back your chances of assisting her to recover are slim to none, the damage is done. But, she may still recover unassisted, though it sounds pretty serious.

Best wishes with her.