human aggressive Brahma pullet

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lifein1840

lifein1840

Crowing
14 Years
Mar 29, 2009
284
519
331
kansas city area
Last May, I bought 10 day old Blue/gold Brahmas and 5 Speckled Sussexs from a local breeder. I kept 1 Brahma and 2 of the S.S. None of them have layed yet, but appear ready now.

My problem is the Brahma. I wanted a Brahma because I had read that they are great broody hens and "gentle giants". My pullet was very friendly and curious, always following me and clucking non-stop. I work to keep all of my chickens friendly and calm. Recently, she has become very aggressive with me....grabbing my hands with her beak and kicking me. I have tried "pecking" her with my fingers with no results. Today, she was extremely aggressive so I picked her up and held her upside down for maybe 10 seconds, then placed her on the floor of the coop and gently held her down for about 10 seconds like a rooster would do. One of my Australorps came by and gave her a "shame on you" peck on the head and the Brahma cowered down from the hen. When I let her up, she simply walked away.

This is the 3rd time that she has attacked me for no reason that I can come up with. I won't keep a chicken with this sort of attitude, especially one that I had hoped would be a good broody for me.

I have 7 chickens total, in an 8x12 coop with about 1,200 sq. ft. of fenced run. They are well fed, always have water and are not crowed. I thought maybe she has changed because of hormones if she is about to lay, but I have never had a pullet act like this.

I only have two options I can think of: 1. carry her around until she sees that I'm in charge
2. well, it's not as pleasant of an option......

Any suggestions????

thanks in advance
 
the obvious question is are you sure she is a pullet, but actually I have a similar problem with a pullet. My five month old serama suddenly start pecking all humans except me who she is bonded to since she was a baby. This includes my OH and child, and is quite upsetting. They have tried being nicer to her and bribing her with treats. Didn't work.they tried giving her little pecks or feather pinches to put her in her place. Didn't work.they tried carrying her around . Didn't work. Alll that works is staying away from her as she will give a warning growling noise before pecking if they get too close.
I'm interested to see if anyone has any other suggestions or experience?
 
I think what happened is chickens can stop seeing people as separate from other chickens if they are too friendly and close to people when growing up. They start seeing us as fellow chickens and that means when they start maturing they eventually wonder where we fit in the pecking order. Since we are nice to them, they figure they are dominant over us and start taking liberties. It can happen with roosters, as people often say its the roosters who were very friendly and cuddly as chicks that turn into the people aggressive nightmares.

the answer would seem to be that we have to assert our dominance and make sure the chickens know we are above them in the pecking order. The only way I can think of to do this is to treat them the way dominant chickens treat lower chickens - to be mean to them, in other words. But that is not ideal as a relationship between pet and owner.
anyone have any other thoughts?
 
I once had an Australorp hen that would bite and attack me. I didn't have a rooster at the time so she must have assumed this role. Ok, so she bites me. BUT when she started hurting the girls, attacking them for no reason, ripping their combs off, and lastly attacking a very sick bird, this was were I drew the line. I gave her the best life possible, had to cage her occasionally, but at age 5, (this had been going on since she was 6 months old) after she pounced on an old hen that was dying of old age and then bit me for intervening...I had had enough. I had tried everthing to change this birds attitude to no avail. I immediately put her down. It hurt to do it, but me nor the flock could take her abuse any more.
 
Much of the attention given by hens to us is due to constant treats. We are walking candy machines to them and feel if they tug on our legs and such to get our attention we'll pull out the scratch feed. My first flock this happened with one bird. Constantly underfoot and what was once cute became very annoying. If you stop the treats completely for a week you probably notice less of an interest in pecking you.

My first flock was great mind you. The ability to walk up to any hen and put your hand out for them to squat down for easy pick up is hard thing to pass on but I did. The pecking and constant under foot outweighed the benefit of easy handling. I don't give my flocks treats all the time anymore and keep it to just enough to train them to run to me when I call. It's nice being able to walk around and chickens walking just out of reach so you never trip and never pecking or jumping on you. You know? Acting like chickens.
 

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