Filing Chicken Beaks - How

[diamondzoo]

I have three young hens who simply will not accept two new pullets (one just started laying.) They pick on them mercilessly. One ends up hiding all the time and the other playing dead in the corner of the enclosed pen. I have tried taking out the two most dominant and all sorts of other things and I end up back with the same problem once they are all together. I am truly afraid that my Americana will be killed. I got some advice to clip the beaks of the three dominant birds. That seems so cruel. I went on line and read about filing their beaks down and that seems more humane but how? I do not want to hurt them. Will their beaks grow back to the way they were? I would like to do something; it is such a pain keeping the chickens in separate area.
I read that having a rooster would keep the chickens from attacking the more docile ones. I would do that but we cannot have roosters where I live. Imagine that!

Thank you for your advice.

 

[donrae]

How much space do you have for the birds? Is there something in the coop to break up line of sight for the littles to hide behind?

 

[diamondzoo]

The ladies are in a 10' x 10' enclosure with a coop. I had put up areas for the younger ones to hide but those areas also ended up being areas that they were cornered and really getting hammered. I also put in a large cat carrier. The young chickens were going in there and not coming out. They were not going into the coop during the cold nights unless I put them there. Not much of a life for them. I was very concerned that they were not getting food and water.
(The Wyandotte pullet is my largest chicken, the Americana is rather small.)