Is this normal or am I messing something up?

[UBkevy]

I was out in the coup at 7 or so and i see 3 chickens in the corner. I thought they where fighting so i broke them up. As i spent time in there mixing the 4 week olds with them (the 8-10 week olds) more wnt into the corner. Within an hour or so all 18 where in the corner fighting for the closest to the wall. At 1 point they where 3 high. Its not cold today was a hight of 75 low near 50. I wa out there 2 days ago with temps about the same and all was well should I be concerned?

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Seems like they are cold to me. 4 week old chicks should be at 70 - 75 degrees yet so they could be starting a riot

 

[annek]

are they afraid of something? I had to drill a small hole in my chicks run and it took them hours before they would come out again.

 

[wanda047]

Did you check to see if there was a snake or something else hiding in the coop or up in the rafters? My buff orpingtons did this one time (they were about 10 weeks old). I searched the coop diligently and never found anything, but noticed when I left the coop that there were crows flying around over head and making a racket. I have no doubt there had been a hawk or other predator in the area and the chicks which had been out in their run earlier had run to the coop for protection. The following day, they were very hesitant to leave their coop, but did later in the day. Within another 24 hours... everything was back to normal.

I mentioned the crows, because as a hunter, I know that crows will fly overhead and make a real racket when there is a predator in the wild. It's as if they are warning the other wildlife of the danger.

eta... I have on occasion seen crows chasing hawks.

 

[Debi214]

Quote:
I have seen that too - but I can't tell if they are crows or really big black birds.