Fighting or Establishing Pecking Order??

musikfan

Songster
Nov 23, 2021
145
375
113
Hey Everyone!

I just got a two month old Silkie today. I put her in the coop and Prissy, my Barred Rock, immediately started a fight and was locking on to the silkie's neck/head area. This lasted about 5 minutes and then the Silkie turned and started being the aggresive one, even worse than Prissy was being. She was merciless. The other two Orps just stood by and stayed out of the way...kind of hilarious to watch them - they wanted nothing to do with it. LOL.

At any rate, they have settled down now, but I was wondering if they were fighting or just vying for pecking order. I was a bit concerned at first as they both were REALLY aggressive with each other. And then Suzie, my lavender, unexpectedly nailed the Silkie when she got too close to her - that is totally out of her character as she's my sweetest one out of the flock...until now. LOL. But she really surprised me. The Silkie ran from Suzie, so it's been interesting to see the interaction so far. But I did want to make sure that I wasn't going to have a massacre on my hands....
 
You shouldn't just dump a new bird in with your flock for more than the reason of aggression. But it's too late to quarantine now. The Rock intended to kill the intruder that was dumped into her territory.
Integration takes time. The Silkie should be placed in a "look don't touch" setup for at least a week to get accustomed to one another. Then the new one is allowed to interact with the original flock.
You also have two complicating factors to this:
  • you have a single bird you are trying to integrate into your flock and,
  • she's different from the others; a Silkie.
Be patient with the integration time and make sure you have LOTS of room for all of them with lots of things in the space to hide behind, dig around in and perch on.
 
You shouldn't just dump a new bird in with your flock for more than the reason of aggression. But it's too late to quarantine now. The Rock intended to kill the intruder that was dumped into her territory.
Integration takes time. The Silkie should be placed in a "look don't touch" setup for at least a week to get accustomed to one another. Then the new one is allowed to interact with the original flock.
You also have two complicating factors to this:
  • you have a single bird you are trying to integrate into your flock and,
  • she's different from the others; a Silkie.
Be patient with the integration time and make sure you have LOTS of room for all of them with lots of things in the space to hide behind, dig around in and perch on.
THIS
 
Thanks for getting back with me. Alas, I am a novice, so I had no idea of what you talked about in your reply. I'm glad to know this and will be more careful in the future. The problem is that my run is so small, and there really isn't an adequate space to separate the newbie.

All that being said, you won't believe this but I had a major surprise not long after the incident. They finally settled down after about an hour. So I'm up on my porch grilling and all of sudden I hear the unmistakable sound of a rooster crowing. The Silkie turned out to be a cock instead of a hen!! LOL!!!! :) I'm not sure how the person who gave him to me missed this, but I cannot have roosters since I am right in the borough of my town (I'm already breaking the rules just by having chickens). He came back and picked up the little guy, so we are now back to the original three, and I'm sure that they are VERY happy to have things back to "normal" for now.
 
I had a feeling it was a roo! Well, I'm glad no one was seriously injured and you know what to do next time. Not only can separating new birds prevent this kind of thing from happening, but it also prevents the spread of disease.
 

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