How did your flock annoy you today?

[TheChickenGirl16]

Flock drama:

So a few days ago I hear an unusual amount of irritated hen squawk. I go check. It's Flamingo, my BCM pullet. She's only laid a few eggs, and only with about 50% accuracy hitting the nest box, so it's not a shock that she's being dramatic about figuring out where to lay. But as I'm looking at her... she CROWS! Right in front of my very eyes.

My knee-jerk reaction was, "oh no! She's a cockerel!" but then I remembered that she has in fact been laying eggs... and she doesn't look remotely like a rooster. So, I chalk it up to confused pullet puberty, she just needs to decide where to lay her egg. I leave.

Well, a while later things still haven't settled down (but no more crowing). I go back outside to see why she won't just lay her darn egg. She looks right at my face and crows again. Like, she is distrinctly trying to communcate SOMETHING to me. I look over at her coop (She ranges with the big flock but still lives with flockmates in a seperate coop) and I see one of the mature hens, Rumor, sitting in the doorway of Flamingo's enclosure, just casually being a jerk, effectively blocking little Flamingo from accessing her nest box.

Well, once back up arrived (that's me, I'm back up), Flamingo was brave enough to go past Rumor to get to her coop. Flamingo runs into the coop, and I (stupidly) think the drama is over. I take my eyes off the coop for a second and the next thing I know Flamingo is out of her coop and still carrying on. Turns out that Rumor had teamed up with Morticia to torment the pullets. Although Rumor was the bouncer guarding the door, Morty was acting as the in-house security and was chasing poor Flamingo out of the nest box. You may have noticed Morty in the video, nonchalantly eating as if she wasn't being an actual tormentress.

Anyway, I kicked Morty and Rumor out of the enclosure, locked Flamingo in the enclosure, and Flamingo laid a lovely egg (in the nest box - yay!).

Flock drama is one of the saddest,(and hardest to deal with), things about owning chickens.

The issue for me, is my younger (broody raised) hens bully the sweet older hand-raised ones.
Cinderella, White Belly, and Pepper Junior are sure that they are queens of the coop, (and me)! Whatever they say goes…
And I usually end up having to puppy-guard the treats so that SOMEONE ELSE can get a bite!

 

[Evadig]

Mine got a louse on me and now I feel like I have bugs crawling all over.

 

[SkyAJK]

Flock drama is one of the saddest,(and hardest to deal with), things about owning chickens.

The issue for me, is my younger (broody raised) hens bully the sweet older hand-raised ones.
Cinderella, White Belly, and Pepper Junior are sure that they are queens of the coop, (and me)! Whatever they say goes…
And I usually end up having to puppy-guard the treats so that SOMEONE ELSE can get a bite!

I feel your pain.

My 2 hens were fighting each other yesterday, they are mortal enemy. I so want them to fight to the end until a victor is prevailed, but that would mean major injury on both so I can not have that, but I so very much want to. Now I have to constantly guard them so that they never come near each other. They live in 2 separate area with their own flock, but one keeps on trying to get into the other area to fight.

 

[SkyAJK]

My flock annoy me big time when they fighting each other for the same nestbox, they completely ignore all other empty nest boxes, just want the one that already have someone sitting in it.

The problem is that they scream so loud when they don't get that box that everyone else wanted...soon the other scream and the whole flock scream and this is super loud, then my dogs howl because of my chickens scream. I go mad, so mad and super mad

I told myself oh why, why do you ever have chicken for? buying egg is so much cheaper, no work and so pain free.

Edit to add that this is the last flock, the number can only go down, not up. I will try to remember this painful experience and not get more chickens. This is easy say than done.

 

[thecatumbrella]

One of my bantams was perched in the run, when she dropped a so massive that it actually thud when it hit the ground. This, in turn, drew the attention of my other bantams, who then ran to the source of the noise, stepping in the freshly laid with their feathered feet.

I seriously cannot make this stuff up.

 

[SkyAJK]

One of my bantams was perched in the run, when she dropped a so massive that it actually thud when it hit the ground. This, in turn, drew the attention of my other bantams, who then ran to the source of the noise, stepping in the freshly laid with their feathered feet.

I seriously cannot make this stuff up.

Laughing with joy and pain They are so funny, I would hate to wash her feet...but what else....

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

Flock drama is one of the saddest,(and hardest to deal with), things about owning chickens.

The issue for me, is my younger (broody raised) hens bully the sweet older hand-raised ones.
Cinderella, White Belly, and Pepper Junior are sure that they are queens of the coop, (and me)! Whatever they say goes…
And I usually end up having to puppy-guard the treats so that SOMEONE ELSE can get a bite!

I hate when younger hens (and even cockerels) begin rising above the older hens in the pecking order.

I also have a broody-raised bully. She's the only broody-raised mature hen I have. I wonder if that's a common thing with them. It doesn't help that she's one of the biggest hens and that her biological mama is also very dominant. I hope yours settles down.

The pecking order in my flock makes no sense. Instead of being a top down system, mine is cyclical. So for example, I have Wren, the matriach, a 6-year-old RIR. She's been one of the top hens for all of her 6 years. Lately though, she's been getting picked on by Ellis, my tiny "might as well be a bantam" 1 year old easter egger. In spite of the fact that Ellis can boss around Wren, Ellis is pretty much the punching bag of the flock. Makes no sense.

Then I have Beastie, an 18-month-old Wyandotte mix hen, who used to be infatuated with my 1-year-old Bielefelder rooster, Hans. They were besties from the time Hans was old enough to realize he was a rooster. But, for the past several weeks, Beastie's been getting in Hans's face and even flogged him a few times. Then I turn around and see Hans mating with Morticia, a 4-year-old very dominant, "man-hater" wyandotte hen. Morticia acts as the second-rooster in the command. She will break up fights between hens and often knock Hans off the other girls. She is the one who keeps young cockerels in check and protects other hens from them. She's the one that roosters are afraid of... So everything they're doing is backwards, lol.

 

[thecatumbrella]

The pecking order in my flock makes no sense. Instead of being a top down system, mine is cyclical.

I know exactly what you mean! My lowest ranked hen, when she works up the nerve, spars with my top ranked hen. Girl's thinking, "Go big or go home!"

 

[thecatumbrella]

I could write in this thread every day for the next millennia and never run out of original material.

Remember how I gave the girls a flock block yesterday in the hopes of getting my reformed broody back in with the gang? Well, they only ate about 1% of what they chiseled off, forcing me to search through the dark mulch for dark sunflower seeds. A losing battle.

This morning I found the seeds I missed, broken and eaten, with their shells discarded 3 feet up the wall in my chickens' food cup, along with a few mouse turds for good measure.

So the flock block gave me insta-mice and did nothing to improve the relationship between my reformed broody and newly minted bully. I don't know if "annoyed" cuts it on this one. Of course I have the only birds on earth that have no interest in sunflower seeds.

IF THE MOUSE CAN EAT IT, SO CAN YOU!

 

[atomic]

I have ample opportunity to be in a situation today but I think maybe I’m starting to learn some things, and despite their protests I’m not letting them out. Seriously I got woken up at 5:30 in the morning to a hurricane going on outside and it’s hardly let up, a perfect recipe for disaster later when I have to corral them back in before I leave for work. Of course they’re still out there, in the rain, doing that urgent head bob against the fence while yelling at me. Yall got a cozy 8x12 (9 feet high) coop to stay in and a 14x16 run for eight of ya but no we can’t just have one chill rainy day.