My 5 hens are now 21 weeks old going on 22 and we believe all but one is now laying.
Yesterday after getting home from work my wife and I stepped out of the garage to be greeted by our girls as they always do when they see us. My wife opens the coop and gets our one and only Easter Egger out to hold and give some love. We loved and petted on her for a little while and then put her back in the coop.
As I set her down and was petting on her as she stood there one of my Australorps comes over standing VERY tall and puffy and POPS her one right on the head. I shoo her away but she comes back to POP my EE once again. Thinking this was a little hen spat between the two I let my EE scoot away into the coop and grabbed the Australorp who was pecking her to pick her up and pet on her a little.
We sat her back down shortly afterwords and was petting her when POP! One of my SL Wyandottes comes over and pecks her one on the head. So now I shoo off the Wyandotte and another one of the hens comes over to try and peck her again.
So in the span of about 15 minutes I had 3 and almost 4 of my 5 girls trading head pecks to whichever hen I happened to be petting on at the time. So... um... are they a little jealous of the attention one is getting over the other? I know there is the whole pecking order thing but I cant determine which of my 5 girls might be the dominant. And after yesterday's display almost ALL of them were being a little "clucky" if you catch my drift.
Have you seen this sort of behavior before?
Yesterday after getting home from work my wife and I stepped out of the garage to be greeted by our girls as they always do when they see us. My wife opens the coop and gets our one and only Easter Egger out to hold and give some love. We loved and petted on her for a little while and then put her back in the coop.
As I set her down and was petting on her as she stood there one of my Australorps comes over standing VERY tall and puffy and POPS her one right on the head. I shoo her away but she comes back to POP my EE once again. Thinking this was a little hen spat between the two I let my EE scoot away into the coop and grabbed the Australorp who was pecking her to pick her up and pet on her a little.
We sat her back down shortly afterwords and was petting her when POP! One of my SL Wyandottes comes over and pecks her one on the head. So now I shoo off the Wyandotte and another one of the hens comes over to try and peck her again.
So in the span of about 15 minutes I had 3 and almost 4 of my 5 girls trading head pecks to whichever hen I happened to be petting on at the time. So... um... are they a little jealous of the attention one is getting over the other? I know there is the whole pecking order thing but I cant determine which of my 5 girls might be the dominant. And after yesterday's display almost ALL of them were being a little "clucky" if you catch my drift.
Have you seen this sort of behavior before?
