Hen bullying another all of a sudden?

[LadyCogburn]

Hello! We have 4 silkie hens we bought from TS. They are almost a year old and were all raised together. I came home this evening to find that one of the hens was relentlessly going after one other hen; pecking her and cornering her. No injuries yet but it would definitely come to that by the looks of it.

I put her in a small dog crate and left her in the coop for the night so she is with the others but can't get at her target. How do I proceed from here? Please any and all advice is appreciated!!! I'm unsure what to do.

 

[Mrs. K]

Being raised together has limited effect on how chickens get along. It may calm down after you have separated them, and it may not. Sometimes the victim is secretly sick. Sometimes a bird cannot take any over crowding. Sometimes as birds come into full size, what was enough room is no longer enough rooms for them. And sometimes I think a bird just goes nuts.

The only thing you can do, is change the set up, or change the flock. A lot of people will mention feed and making nutrient adjustments, but I am not a real believer. Pin less peepers might be the real solution, or removing one of the birds from the flock.

Mrs K

 

[Nym]

From my own observations, and I'm very new to keeping / raising my own chickens, it sounds like a heirachy takeover. One of my pure pekin's, Susie, used to pick quite harshly on her only sister, even preventing her from getting food, until I started intervening by pushing Susie away and using a low growl sound when she got too much. I still use a low growl sound if Susie starts getting too bull-headed. No idea if this is the right or wrong thing to do but it worked. In the wild the picked on chicken would have the option of leaving; not so in a coop situation, so this is why I stepped in. I also gave Joannie her own food bowl at the other end of the coop and even now, some year later, Joannie is still the first one in each evening to make sure she gets first dibs lol