Mean and very aggressive towards the new chicks

[JillGab]

I incubated and got 7 new chicks. I made a brooder section in the coop for when they were 5 weeks old, and they stayed there for 3 weeks so my original flock could see them. Afterward, I created a run section for them during the day, a couple of weeks later, slowly opening both ends for them to explore and mingle with the flock.

Everything went well, except for some hens. They don’t accept the new chicks and are mean and aggressive towards them. I witnessed one hen grabbing a chick by the beak and swinging it around. I isolated the bully hen in a cage for a couple of weeks, although she improved slightly, she continued attacking the chicks. Other hens also displayed aggressive behavior, so I isolated them too. However, their behavior hasn't changed despite the isolation.

Is there anything else I can do to correct their behavior, or should I consider rehoming them? These mean hens are 10 months old and good layers.

 

[nuthatched]

Keep the young ones in their own run until their bigger.

 

[Mrs. K]

What works best for me, is escapes and safety zones where chicks can escape through, get out of sight, and the bigger hens can't follow them. The thing is, it has to be large areas, so they don't get trapped away from them.

Pallets laid flat just up a couple of inches off the ground, so chicks can get under there easily- I often feed the chicks there. Or a fence again, just a couple of inches off the ground, that is where I start my chicks, I keep them in for 2-3 days, feed them in the safety zone and then raise the edge so that they explore on their terms.

A lot depends on what your run looks like - is it a big open rectangle where as every bird and can see every other bird 100% of the time? Put a bunch of junk into it. It will look cluttered to you, but it gives birds away to step out of sight from each other.

Do have multiple feed stations where as while eating at one station, they cannot see a bird eating at another.

Mrs K

 

[ChickenCanoe]

After all the care you have taken to incorporating new birds into the flock, one never knows if the established birds will accept the new birds. Normally, those interlopers won't be accepted because new birds are seen as a threat to the well being of the flock. They will compete of food and water and could potentially bring disease to the flock. For that reason, they try to drive them off or even kill them.

I rarely move young birds into a flock but it is possible. Find a member of the flock that will be their hero. Sometimes that means putting a single hen with the chicks when they are very young. Frequently, she will adopt them and become their mother and protector, at which time you can put them with the flock. By the time she weans them, they are accepted as members.

As important as it is to isolate a bully to safeguard the young birds, it is best to completely isolate that bird, meaning completely out of sight of the flock so when it is returned, it is trully the new bird.

For now, if you have the housing options, put the chicks with a single of your most docile hens in their own space. Let them become fast friends and then add another bird, then another till there are only a couple bullies left.

 

[Stephine]

I can’t integrate my new flock members as chicks because we have no power at the coop, so they don’t go out until they are 8 weeks and then spend another 6 weeks or so separated in a see but don’t touch set up in the coop and run areas. When they are finally about the size of some of my older hens I let them mingle, with plenty of escape options. I usually have a few hens that are being especially mean. I either remove the bully for a while or put pinless peepers on anyone too obsessed with the newcomers. It throws them off their game a bit. Either way it seems to be that they are not really accepted into the flock until they have reached laying age and filled out a little bit, at 6-8 months old. But then all is fine again. We do this every year, so the older hens (I have some that are eight years ild soon) become pretty used to this and are usually very low drama, it’s the young hens that make most of the fuss…

 

[Cindy in PA]

If you waited until 8 weeks to integrate it is really too late to go smoothly. Most would then wait until they were the same size. It's easiest to integrate at 3-4 weeks allowing for an escape place that only the chicks can fit into. This is only feasible if the chicks are incubated in the coop or at least put out there at 1-2 weeks to be seen by the hens but not touched.

 

[SamLockwood]

The suggestions about having broken-up lines of sight do work in my experience. My flock free-ranges all day but even the coop & run they sleep in has multiple areas that are screened off from each other.

A lot of pecking order establishment involves the dominant bird chasing the other one out of sight, and if the other bird can't or won't get out of sight this gets interpreted as a challenge and violence can escalate.

If you have just enough roosting space for your flock, add some more if you can, preferably with different roosting areas for the different cliques.

I tend to start integration earlier: with moving them to an outdoor brooder setup at two weeks old and I start the "look, don't touch" at around 3 weeks. When the aggression between the wire tones down I start limited visits (two hours or so before dusk), usually this is at six weeks of age. Even then there's a lot of chasing and "time outs" as the pecking order gets established. This is where having a broken line-of-sight helps.

I let the birds decide when to fully integrate and move the little ones into the "big house" full time. Depending on how ambitious the younger bird is, this is between 10 and 15 weeks of age.