Chicken with a Grudge Update

[ernie85017]

• ernie85017
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• Joined: 6/2012
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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.

 

[Free Feather]

What do you mean by harassment? Could it just be the pecking order? Chickens definitely remember for longer than a week.

 

[ernie85017]

She was constantly going after just one hen. If the hen went up on the perch, she followed her to bully her down. She'd even lower the shoulder next to the hen and raise the other one looking menacing.

She didn't do tis with anyone else. She never did it before. They both are at the end of their moults.

I read that if one is separated for a week the others will not remember her.

It proved true when I had the first of the brother roosters decrowed. They had been best buds, grew up together (what did I know from straight run chicks? learned my lesson.) When Roosterboy returned to the yard after recovery, he chased his once-beloved brother all over until he finally stuck his head behind a bucket in a corner and cried Uncle. Thereafter he was King. Somehow I thought they would continue to be buddies after the surgery. Learn something all the time, I do.

 

[ernie85017]

PS: the pecking order has been established for a long time now. Violet was in the middle layer of the order.