I was surprised to see my little underweight crossbeak mount her best friend the larger white EE. She even grabbed her neck. When I looked at my larger hen later I saw a dark mark on her lower back where I could see she has been pecked quite a bit. I put no-pick stuff on it but I'm wondering who did the pecking and if it's because they have been locked up in the coop and run since the time change. Is the mounting behaviour connected? The crossbeak girl has never been dominant and is not sexually mature like the other 6 month olds. They have 47 sq ft for the 5 of them. I was hoping that would be enough. Do they need more room already? Gonna be a long winter. Thank-you!
she might be the " top of the pecking order" hen, some hens will act like a rooster if there is no rooster around to set them straight. some head hens will even walk around with there neck up high like a rooster, and some are known to even try and crow, but this is a normal behavior
Well I'll have to get a pic of her but yes I do think she is a girl. I've never seen her do this before either and I've seen them out free ranging together a lot. My larger girl has an area of about 5 nickels picked clean on her lower back but I don't think Zippy the cross beak could actually peck her as she has a curved upper beak and couldn't grasp the feathers with her lower beak either. It's weird.
Before I had a mature rooster, one of my hens mounted the others, and "crowed," too. (They don't really crow -- that sound was hilarious.) She was just trying to be the roo of the flock. But you don't want her hurting the others, any more than you would want a roo around who hurt or harmed his hens when mating them.
