Was it non stop days long bullying, or one or two good fights?
This is the key to the solution. Fights happen for a reason, and it's best to find the reason and solve the problem at the root, otherwise it may recur or continue. And depending on what the root problem is, isolating the bully hen may not be the best solution.
Thanks!
That's what happened to my hen, too. She was running around trying to dominate everybody. She was feeling threatened by the pullets rising to power. So you do have pullets (or cockerels, if by "guys" you mean males) the May 2021 ones. Mine are April 2021. They're coming up on a year old, trying to assert themselves. Can your hen see them? Do they interact through a fence or other partition? They might play a role in this. If she's top hen, then she might feel that her position is threatened, and is trying to remind everybody who's boss.I put her back in for like fifteen seconds and she instantly attacked every single hen and drew more blood. She’s 6 and the others are all younger but mixed ages and breeds. I got her right out of there because she’s a good fighter and could have seriously injured some of my hens. The only thing that changed recently was that we separated a sick hen (sour crop) their run is something like 10 by 20 ish. I’ll find out the exact dimensions. There’s a 5 by 6 coop inside that takes up space. I have six hens (besides the sick one who wasn’t in there, she would be number seven). We have no new pullets in with them but we do have a separate run for our 7 little guys (hatched in May 2021). When I noticed I was outside and heard some squabbling and so I ran over to find one of my hens bloody and the others all dispersed with the bully, Chirp, after them. I watch for another 30 seconds while she chased around and harassed a few more. She seems to have just gone crazy. She is separated again
My pullets have been living physically with the hens, integrated and everything, for 9 months now, since they were chicks. No problems at all. Until that attack that happened in the middle of the day, seemingly out of nowhere. They have been showing a lot of signs of maturity lately - their combs grew a lot just in the past month or so, and they've been acting bolder and more assertive. Not initiating anything, just not as willing to step away and kiss the ground the queen walks on. Which has been causing tensions to escalate. The initial attack was just the tensions boiling over and opening pandora's box, and after that it was one attack after another until I started intervening. Tensions can rise even if they can see each other but can't get to each other. If a hen walks towards a pullet and the pullet does not step away (even on the other side of a fence), that's a sign of rebellion. To us it's subtle, and you can miss it if you're not watching for it, but to them it can be an invitation for a fight. It can cause the top hen to question her place and want to ascertain it, and not just with the pullets, but with everybody. That's how my hen started attacking her peers, when it was the pullets who started it. She was going around trying to subdue everybody, preventatively, and encountered pushback from some, which led to fighting. So my bet is on the pullets as the root cause, even if they aren't actively involved. Chicken society is complicated, and violent.
Quite possibly it is the pullets. The only thing is that they have been there for months (3 months ish) and I let them out for an hour every night before sunset while I supervise them and the bullying happened in the middle of the day while they were separated. They can definitely see each other but they can’t interact through the fence. Also, she is the top hen. And thanks for the help!!
