Hen crowing

[Lava22]

My hen of five years now, still laying...is starting to crow at 4 AM..she also is picking on the one other hen I have and pulling out the feathers on her back. They will fight like roosters...kicking feet up in the air! Not sure what's going on...neighbors not happy w/ the early wake up. Any suggestions about what to do??

 

[Whittni]

Treat her like a rooster, because that's the role she's playing.

1. Treat her like a dog. Spray her with water everytime she crows.

2. To keep the neighbors happy, get her on the roost at night and bring her inside in a crate, carrier, box or whatever you have on hand. Keep her indoors until its mid-morning, maybe 8:40am or sometimes even later and let her outside, giving the neighbors time to sleep. You can put her in a closet with the door a little cracked for air.

Otherwise you'll have to re-home her to someone with a rooster to have her stop crowing or move somewhere else.

 

[gmendoza]

My hen of five years now, still laying...is starting to crow at 4 AM..she also is picking on the one other hen I have and pulling out the feathers on her back. They will fight like roosters...kicking feet up in the air! Not sure what's going on...neighbors not happy w/ the early wake up. Any suggestions about what to do??

This happens with the absence of a roo. Either get a roo or more hens. Not much a solution, but if you have more hens than two, say 4 or 5, there will be some order out of your chaos. There will be a hen-boss who will set a certain structure, so to speak.

We have 9 bantam hens (a little variety of a lot) and two crow like roos a good amount of time. They have no roo since Sir Bok Bok passed away a year or so ago.

even some of our bigger gilrs in the big coop crow from time to time because they have no roo. Rooster Cogburn passed away a couple of months ago from an unfortunate pummeling from a tom turkey.

but to sum this all up, hens do crow without a roo to either show dominance, or to attract a roo to see who's the man of the house. You need more hens to solve the fighting.

 

[ibreathe4u]

My 14 month old Speckled Sussex started crowing LOUDLY today as well. A couple days ago I caught her mounting my 20 week old Cuckoo Marans (she's squatting at the drop of a hat). LaLa the Sussex has always been loud, but she was #3 of 3 until the two new girls arrived two months ago. I really didn't expect her to be so crazy. My neighbors won't put up with this for long, she may be taking a trip to my friends farm if she's not careful.