Head hens...and how to tell???

[Daisygirl]

My girls are 11 weeks old now, and starting to do the little "sparring" type fighting - - and I'm wondering who's in charge...
Is it too early to tell??
What are the signs of a "head"???
I have no roosters, and the girls are Brown shavers. There are only six of them.

 

[Mahonri]

Spend enough time with them and you'll figure out who is on top.

 

[CarolynPerth]

It's fascinating to watch them. Ours were a part of a small flock sold off so they were already established in their pecking order. We named "Boss Chook" pretty quickly as she was the one that led them to bed, laid the first egg in the nest and alerted the others to any danger. She is also the most placid and the favourite of our children.

We also have a pretty ragged looking younger bird that looks like she is hen pecked but we never see any picking on her and she is also very feisty when it comes to scrap time and escaping from any temporay pen we put out to contain their foraging.

 

[hen-thusiast]

I don't think it's too early to tell. The pecking order was starting to settle in with our ladies around that time. If you give them a treat, the birds near the top will try to hog it and the lower birds will stick to the fringes. At least with our ladies anyway.

 

[eggsrcool]

Have you ever noticed that when (if) you put treats down, some hens will be straight in there, and others will slowly followm, but then get pecked? The ones that get pecked are low down in the pecking order and will probably go back once the other hens have moved away to try and get anything left behind to eat.