Hen going crazy?

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

We added a new hen to one of our cages and then suddenly one of the other hens in there started making crazy sounds and attacking everyone BUT the new hen. She even injured a hen that she's been peacefully living with for the last 6 weeks. What's going on? I had to separate her into a "time out" cage to cool off but when I try adding her back in she loses it again.
She is only going after the hens she has already been living with. It makes no sense to me.

Any advice? (They are 10 weeks old)

 

[shrimpsilkies]

They... just do that sometimes. Around when I introduced my current male and his two hatch mates, my smaller jumbo hen started making the same creaking noises and attacking her flock. She attacked the new ones first, but from then on she would chase and peck any quail that jumped too high or fluttered into the air a little. She also started to attack my hand when I went to pick her up. She had a crossbeak too which actually started to do some damage to the hens. Nothing seemed to dissuade her and then eventually she got egg bound and I had to cull her.

If you can try the barrier method of reintroducing her, that might give you a better idea of when she stops being aggressive. If you have somewhere else for the new hen to go, separate the new one and see if the attacking hen will be calm when it’s only familiar birds in with her. You can also just try letting them fight it out, quail can be vicious but eventually they might be able to settle things. It didn’t work for mine though.