Help! New hen is a bully!!!

[Amazonlover]

Hi all,

About a month ago, my cousin rehomed one of her 18 month old prairie blue bell hens with me since the hen was being bullied by her flock and had become a favorite of the two roosters so had numerous injuries and feathers missing. She was concerned the poor thing wouldn’t survive the winter. I have a flock of five 14 month old hens, five different breeds. I’ve been keeping the new hen (who I’ve named Tammy), isolated in quarantine for the last month or so and recently decided to try a couple of days of “Look, but no touch”, where she’s been in my girls run, and my girls have been out in the yard. Today I tried putting one of my girls from the middle of the pack, Edith, in with her. Tammy immediately attacked Edith! She did it multiple times (by jumping up and at her) and poor Edith was terrified so I pulled her out. Then I put Agatha, who is second in command in my flock, in with Tammy and Tammy did the same thing. Agatha was running from her and Tammy finally got her cornered then Tammy attacked her. Poor Aggie was terrified as well. So now Tammy is in the run by herself and my girls are in the yard. I was mentally prepared to tamp my girls down from being bullies but did not expect to be introducing a terrorist into my flock of sweet girls. What do I do???

 

[Evadig]

I had a hen who was very bullied. Once I removed her from her companions and put her with my other flock, she promptly became the bully herself. Pinless peepers helped settle her down. They block the hen's line of sight so they can't see their victim as well.

You may want to try the look but don't touch method for a bit longer - maybe a week or more? And then I would just put her in with the entire flock. Some people say to add the new hen at night, so they all wake up together.

Hope this helps!

 

[DobieLover]

I would not be putting flock members in with her individually. That is not going to work.

After the 'look, don't touch' period of about 7-10 days, you want to release her into the LARGE flock area with LOTS of things in it. I can't stress enough that they need a lot of space. Way more than just the 10 sq ft per bird minimum that so many people state. And there has to be substrate to scratch around in, perches/object to jump up on to hang out and preen, objects leaned up against each other or the run wall to hide behind. They need to be able to engage their natural instincts to evade higher ranking members and have a place to actually do that, to scratch around, to sun and dust bathe and just be normal chickens. After she's explored this space for an hour or so, let your flock in with her then monitor. If she drives off flock members and leaves them be, that is good. If she ruthlessly pursues them, intervene. Sometimes there may be a little scuffle and someone gets a small injury. As long as it doesn't last for over a minute, let them work it out.

She is absolutely being aggressive in the pen when one bird is introduced because of what happened to her before. She doesn't want that to happen with her again.

 

[Amazonlover]

I had a hen who was very bullied. Once I removed her from her companions and put her with my other flock, she promptly became the bully herself. Pinless peepers helped settle her down. They block the hen's line of sight so they can't see their victim as well.

You may want to try the look but don't touch method for a bit longer - maybe a week or more? And then I would just put her in with the entire flock. Some people say to add the new hen at night, so they all wake up together.

Hope this helps!

Thank you so much for responding. I actually just went online and purchased the pinless peepers-they should arrive tomorrow. I was also thinking about just dropping her in with my whole flock, thinking maybe the five of them will work together to keep her in line. Right now my girls are back to having access to their run and Tammy has been placed in the fenced in raised garden bed area, where they can see her but there is no contact.

 

[DobieLover]

Thank you so much for responding. I actually just went online and purchased the pinless peepers-they should arrive tomorrow. I was also thinking about just dropping her in with my whole flock, thinking maybe the five of them will work together to keep her in line. Right now my girls are back to having access to their run and Tammy has been placed in the fenced in raised garden bed area, where they can see her but there is no contact.

Read the post above this reply. I would not put pinless peepers on that bird. She has not been given the chance to earn a place in your flock. There is a reason she did what she did with your birds and I mentioned it above.

 

[Evadig]

Thank you so much for responding. I actually just went online and purchased the pinless peepers-they should arrive tomorrow. I was also thinking about just dropping her in with my whole flock, thinking maybe the five of them will work together to keep her in line. Right now my girls are back to having access to their run and Tammy has been placed in the fenced in raised garden bed area, where they can see her but there is no contact.

Please follow the advice in @DobieLover's post - she has a lot more experience than me - and while I try to be helpful, I can only go off my own experience, which is rather limited .

 

[sourland]

As Dobie Lover has indicated, you are introducing birds to her one at a time in her territory. As a once picked on bird she is going to try to assert dominance. Introduce her to the whole flock in their environment. There will be fighting - expect it.

 

[Amazonlover]

Thank you @DobieLover and @sourland, I plan on trying them all together. Hopefully I have the stomach to witness some fighting

 

[Ridgerunner]

When they fight there can be an injury. After all, that's what they are trying to do. Some can keep fighting to the death, even with hens, not just roosters. But what I usually see is that before too long one decides she is better off running away than continuing to fight. She needs enough room to run away and get away.

If she cannot get away it can become serious. If you don't have enough room that she can get away or she gets trapped in a corner or against a wall or fence, she may lay down and try to protect her head. The attacker often tries to peck her head. That's how they can kill ech other. If you see one standing over another pecking the head you need to quickly intervene.

I have a lot of room. The vast majority of the time when my hens and roosters fight one runs away and it is over, at least for now. It's how they determine the pecking order. I consider it no big deal. But I still pay attention in case it is not a standard fight.

 

[Mrs. K]

Room and hideouts, roosts, mini walls and multiple feed bowls.

I frequently give the advice of letting the original birds outside of the run, and the new one inside the run so that they can get some territorial rights, but generally people are trying to add younger birds to older birds. Often times the younger birds are not even mature yet.

In your situation you have an older bird than your original birds, but at this age of the game even though 4 months younger, that is really not much of a difference.

She must be a pretty aggressive bird, or pretty determined to not be the lowest bird. It is rather surprising as a victim sometimes just keeps being a victim. But a month of quarantine, might have given her more strength, she might have been kept from the food bowl.

Integration can be rough. Good luck.

Mrs K