i thought roosters were meant to keep the peace?

[centrarchid]

Rooster maybe trying to breed hen but for some reason hen is not interested. Isolate as if in quarantine and feed her well to get her into better condition. Then try to introduce her again. Simply having her in the smaller pen though could limit social strife involving other hens upon her realease.

 

[wullus]

Would the rooster peck her and carry on though if he's trying to mate with her and failing? And does that mean that what I'm doing is good?

She is three years old, so she getting on a bit and is around two years older than the rooster (lol, cougar hen ). If I let her out again tomorrow, would that be a good idea? Thanks

 

[dretd]

Hi Wullus. I was wondering a couple of things about your situation, not sure if I can help or not but have a couple of comments too.

I was wondering if your 'new' old white broody has ever had a rooster around? If not, she may not understand what he is up to with the whole mounting thing and be terrified of his aggresssion. She may eventually give up and there will be peace. Could it be that he may not be pecking her but trying to grab the back of her neck to try to pin her down and mount her?

Part of the problem may be temporary becasue she is broody. Were you going to try to hatch a clutch right away? I would want to isolate her from the flock anyway so that she can peacefully brood the clutch and raise up your little chicks without being disturbed, especially since she's at the bottom of the flock. Personally. I'd build her a llittle coop area all to herself where she can see the others but not interact with them and let her settle in. Hopefully she'd go back to being broody and you can set your eggs.

Whenever I have a hen that I have to pull out to the hospital cage, when I put her back in to the flock I always pull out one or two of the other hens for a couple of nights. This disturbs the pecking order and allows the hen to re-settle herself in and I think they get less pecked on. I would do the same thing with a newcomer. They are going in to an area where they don't know the territory then on top you have aggressive chickens pecking at them. If you take out some of the others, it allows them to settle in and gain some confidence before getting pecked at.

As for your not isolating the newbies in, although its a risk, I would probably hold them for only a few days if they came from a friend's flock and I knew them really well and trusted them to be a safe flock. A friend would tell the truth about any problems, losses or parasites they have had. I would never skip the 30 days from an unknown flock--especially getting one from an auction or from an ad--you have no idea what conditions the flock has been kept in and how many outside chickens they have been exposed to etc.

 

[wullus]

Hi dretd,
She has had a rooster around, but it was a Wyandotte rooster, which is waaaaaay smaller than her. I'm not sure whether he has tried to mount her or not, because of his size. They were at my grandparents

The hen isn't broody at the moment, but we got her because she has a good history of going broody on eggs. So my grandma gave her to us so that if she was to go broody, then we would be able to hatch some chicks the natural way I have let her out of the cage, and the rooster did chase after her for a while again, but she went to the corner and he stopped. I let them all out to free-range, and put her with the others, and she seemed to want to go around by herself. I kept moving her to go with the other birds in the flock, but she would stay there with them for a while and then try and wander off.

Would it be a good idea to remove this dominant hen for a few days? She is like the rooster's right hand girl, they are pretty "tight" the white hen however, still pecks her, and she'll run away.
They were from a trusted flock, my grandma however never ever let them out to free-range, she just kept them locked up in the coop/run all the time (they no doubt got VERY bored). She would have never treated them badly, except maybe to pull her off the clutch of eggs she was sitting on.

Here's some photos I just took of them in the garden.

Most of the flock:


Also I found out ours are actually ISA Browns, not Red Stars as I initially thought. Woops. Here's one of them:


Here's the massive white hen. I call her "Whoppa"


Whoppa, eyein' off the others. Shows comparison in size and, from memory, she was getting ready to steal whatever they found


Thanks!

 

[dretd]

It looks from the photos that everything is going quite well, actually. In fact it looks like you have a wonderful bird paradise for them!

I would continue as your are and they will sort it out. The big white Whoppa is hanging close enough to the others she will be fine and just hasn't made any friends yet, and may always be an outsider. She is also big enough that she is physically intimidating and will help minimize the pecking.

I would probably leave the dominant hen since she's the roo's favorite. If you took her out he might get too frisky with one of the others and really upset the apple-cart with the pecking order and do more harm than good. If your Whoppa was Tiny then it might be necessary, but not in this case.

Good luck to you and your flock!

 

[wullus]

Thanks dretd! Whoppa does wander off by herself sometimes, but lately I calmly walk behind her and move her towards all the others when free-ranging. Sometimes if she goes too far I'll pick her up and put her out with them, and close the coop door. I know this probably isn't right, but I want to force the socialising with the birds (much like my parents did to me haha).

And the chickens do love free-ranging in the garden. My mum, however, does not. She might if they scratched all the hay back into place on her garden, because it goes everywhere hahaha. I usually do it for her though. I honestly get this itch when the chooks aren't let out for a few days.

Holy god though, it hurts when I pick her up and she manages to squirm one of her wings out and flap like crazy for a few seconds! Feels like a mallot bashing into my hand! Haha well maybe not that hard but it still hurts though.