Merging flocks - fighting and stress

[FuzzyDuck]

Hi all. Looking for advice on flock dynamics. I merged my existing flock of 8 hens and 1 rooster with a new flock of 9 hens. I’ve added hens before but often just pullets, and never this many. I unfortunately don’t have the set-up to do side-by-side runs so they can see each other first, so after quarantine we ultimately had to just put them all in together and supervise the introduction yesterday.



Unfortunately, the rooster and one new hen, who didn’t submit, fought and in the few seconds it took to step in, he caught her with his spur. She seems okay, but bled a fair bit and we brought her inside to recover. The rooster is separated elsewhere for now. The other hens are scuffling a bit and avoiding each other, but hoping they can work out their dynamics.

1. Will it be possible to eventually reintroduce the rooster, or will I need to get rid of him? I don’t want him hurting anyone…
2. A couple of my original girls are puffing themselves up and staying far away. They aren’t injured and weren’t chased off. Is this just a stress response?

 

[RubelliteRose]

I think that was a smart move separating the rooster while the girls work out a new pecking order. If he is a good rooster, you should be able to reintroduce him again in a few days. You could trim the points off his spurs as well. We use dog nail trimmers on one rooster, but have to use a dremel cut off wheel on the other two. Make sure to have styptic powder/gel or corn starch handy just in case you nick the quick.
Do you free range or have visual barriers in the run so hens that are feeling stressed can "hide"? Your girls who are staying away from the others are probably near the bottom of the pecking order and waiting to see who wins the top spots. You may also see smaller groups developing within your flock. Our flock will sometimes wander around as one large group, but they will often separate into 2 or 3 smaller groups.

 

[fldiver97]

As Rubelite Rose said, keep the rooster away for a few days and see that the hens sort it out. If they have space and access to multiple feed and water stations they should all be able to eat and drink and get settled. If you even have a wire dog crate or some temporary fencing to have to roo nearby where they can see each other for a while but not touch that may help to reintroduce later without bloodshed. Hope your injured girl heals quickly, clean the wound and apply some triple antibiotic for a while to help her heal.

 

[FuzzyDuck]

Thank you both for weighing in! I’m pretty upset it turned out this way. I’ll be sure to continue to tend to her wound — it’s on her neck and bled a lot but we cleaned it and it clotted okay and today she’s eating and seems relatively perky. So hopefully she heals well.

I’ll be sure to keep the rooster separate for a while. He just joined the flock in February, but he generally has been fine with the hens, if a bit overeager in the way that some roosters can be. In his old flock, there were lots of roosters and he was bottom of the pecking order there. So maybe he got scared when the new hen fought him… Good tip on trimming his spurs, maybe we’ll try that and then eventually reintroduce him in a dog crate and see. I just don’t want him to hurt any of the girls again!

We don’t have our electric netting set up for the season yet so everyone is in one run at the moment but soon they’ll have more space to roam. There are some pallets in the run where they can hide or get away from each other though.