Feisty Drake

flyingdragon

In the Brooder
10 Years
Nov 22, 2009
65
0
39
I have had a trio of silver appleyards about four months. They are about 8 months old. I recently introduced 3 new hens (Campbell, harlequin, Cayuga) to them. The new hens are 6 months and have just started to lay. The problem is that the SA drake pesters the new hens constantly. Is this mating behavior or aggression towards new flock members? First experience with ducks. Have chickens but have not noticed this behavior in them. Thanks.
 
The drake is establishing his leadership over the new ones. That can go one for days. You will notice that he is chasing them down and standing on them. Sometime he will mate them, but most of the time he will be just on top. He will do that until he is sure that they know who boss is. My drake did that with one girl for about a months. It's normal. Sometimes it helps to have the pen divided so they can get used to each other through a fence. He will later still show this type of behavior, but it may be less obvious and faster over with.
 
I'm dealing with this as well. I have 1 & 2 year old hens. My drake(and his partner) are almost a year old and have been with all the chickens since the beginning. Just in the last 2 weeks, he's starting picking on just one hen. He's starting to ruffle her feathers and I can tell it wears her out. I've tried seperating them in pens but as soon as I let them back out, he just starts again. And it's only this one hen. He leaves the others alone. ANy thoughts on how to get him to stop or to deal with it in the mean time?


Melodie
 

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