This is probably going to sound really stupid to the experienced folks, but I'm brand new to chickens, so I could only go by what I know and that's dogs training. When puppies mouth too hard one of the ways to get them to stop is to shriek really loudly (REALLY loud, ear-piercing shrieks) and take your hand away (remove attention). It's the same screech littermates use when someone is playing too rough. The flip side is they get praised & petted galore when they keep their mouths in check. Takes patience and a lot of repetition, but it works.
Tried the screech technique on the chicks - surprise, surprise, nothing. (What?? Birds and dogs are different??
) But when I added a gentle thump to the beak - that got their attention. And I mean REALLY gentle - just enough to startle them. Their little faces were so shocked, lol! They all had to go through their own thumping a few times, but they actually got the message faster than my dogs usually do. When hand feeding if someone pecked too hard I would shriek and immediately take my hand (and food) away, then wait for them to calm down before I gave it back.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but no-one has pecked me hard enough to hurt in weeks. Occasional test pecks that I barely feel, yes, but nothing like what it was. Every few days someone needs a reminder "shriek," but that's all it takes to re-set the whole flock. Might be a strange way to go about it, but hey, it worked!
