Fighting in the broody coop. Help!

[murphrandir]

I have 3 mama hens to chicks aged 1.5-2.5 weeks old. I thought everything had been going great- each mom had one baby, except one had 2- but I noticed if I ever need to handle a chick (it’s caught, it has a wound, etc.) it winds all the moms up and they start lashing out at any and everybody. I first noticed this when I saw a baby with a peck mark on its back and picked it up. That caused one of the moms (not even this chicks mom) to pick up the other baby and throttle it before throwing it. I treated that wound and vowed I would just let things be.
That was until today. One of the two babies (the same one with a peck mark) had a few more scabs and some broken feathers. Granted, it is a standard being raised by bantams- I thought maybe it was getting picked on because it’s too large to fit under mom well. I elected to remove it and it’s now in the brooder with several other bantam chicks. It looks very patchy with several healing scabs- whatever has happened to it happened whenever I wasn’t messing with them, so I guess they’re all just incredibly nasty to each other’s babies?
I know everybody says to put broody hens and chicks separately, but that’s all that’s in this coop. I won’t be giving them eggs again- but will this work itself out?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some hens co-parent very well. They work together to take care of the chicks. You can find several posts on this forum where they work well together.

But it doesn't always work out. Sometimes if they are a nest together one will kill a chick that hatches under a different hen. Sometimes one hen will try to kill a chick under another hen. Sometimes one hen wants all of the chicks and will fight the other hens to take all of them. Chicks can get hurt in those fights. One time I had one hen that had just gone broody hear chicks hatching under a different broody. She attacked to take over the nest. Half of the eggs were destroyed before they could hatch.

They are not always nasty to each other's chicks. With your experiences though I'd try giving all of the chicks to one hen and break the others from being broody. Even with the age differences one hen might take them all. Or house the hens with their chick so they cannot interact. What you are doing is not working so I'd try something different.

I know everybody says to put broody hens and chicks separately, but that’s all that’s in this coop.

Not everybody says that, many of us let a broody hen raise her chicks with the flock. If the hen has enough room to work with it usually works out OK. But, yes, some people do suggest that.

I won’t be giving them eggs again

If you want to hatch eggs again I'd only give eggs to one broody at a time. Break any others from being broody instead of giving them eggs. With your experiences you can probably understand why I avoid multiple broodies and co-parenting.