Help! Territorial older hens

[mvanzeeland]

My wife and I are brand new to backyard chickens. Coop is 10ftx4ft with 4ftx4ft hen house. (Designed like carolina coops, California coop)
We have three hen(2 Wyandottes, 1 olive egger) that are 18 weeks old and 2 Rhode Island reds about 16 weeks old.
Our problems is the 3 older hens don't allow the 2 reds into the run to eat, so they end up just staying the hen house.
We have over come this by allowing them to free range in our backyard, but technically free ranging is not allowed in our city, plus times in future we will not be able to let them out of the run.

How can we stop this behavior with the older hens?

Thanks, Matt

 

[AidKD]

'Restarting' the older hens may help you. The older girls are at the top of the pecking order which means they pretty much do whatever they want. Restarting them means taking them out for a few days then putting them back in. They'll be at the bottom of the pecking order then and the younger ones will be on top.

 

[mvanzeeland]

AidKD.....Thank you for the reply!

-Matt

 

[NatJ]

Obvious thing to do first: make sure there is feed and water in the coop, and in several places in the run.

Dividing the run, so the older ones have part and the younger ones have part, could help--that way the younger ones can get in the habit of coming out safely into their part, and the older ones could get used to seeing them there.

If they get used to a divided run, after the younger ones are no longer acting so scared, you could try putting just ONE of the older ones in with them. Because the younger ones will outnumber that single hen, hopefully she will not bully them (move her back out if she does.) If you can get the younger two living with one older one, then add just one more older one. If that works, you can add the third one of the older birds, and let them all have access to the whole run again.

 

[MarkJr]

By the numbers you’re a bird too many.
I used a pallet to give some more floor space to my run. The youngsters jump up there and the old biddies stay on the floor contently. Gave a few hiding holes and my thirteen birds manage in 72sqft run. I also had to make sure I had 18” of roost each available. Less and they were cranky.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Were these birds raised together or no? You are tight on space for the number of birds... and that's causing the birds to act up to protect what limited space they have. Limited space also makes it difficult to add clutter to allow the younger birds to safely hide from the others out in the run: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-cluttered-run.1323792/

I personally feel the advised minimums on here are too small for flock harmony, and you're below that minimum.

Is it possible to expand the run space (preferably wider, like twice as wide)? Or if that is not feasible, I'd honestly consider rehoming the younger ones, and not adding more birds to the enclosure until you're able to expand both coop and run.

 

[mvanzeeland]

Thank you everyone for so much fantastic information. You all have given us many things to think about and try.

Mayt