My Chickens are killing eachother...help!

[OrganicFarmWife]

OK. I had Cornish Cross too. It was late fall so I figured I could coop them together in my huge barn. Plenty of space, two seperate food and water not within site, and I let them out on good days. My Barr Rocks just about killed my Cornish Cross. I think the larger meat birds are just so noticeably slower and less agile that they cannot get free from the lighter faster birds. So the hen pecking becomes over violent.
I do not know what to tell you. We seperate and eventually processed the Cornish Cross and my Barr Rock has since happily accepted two Easter Eggers without incident.
I know that isn't the solution you were looking for. But at least you know why it is happening.

 

[sking2010]

Okay thank you

 

[nposluszny]

That's wild, my RIRs are the biggest chickens out of my flock (no pun intended, but they are literally afraid of EVERYTHING). They hide from flies.

 

[sking2010]

I guess they are all different with different personalities. I had a flock of chickens when I was younger and I never had this problem they were mostly reds and they were great chickens. The 3 reds I have now are just bullies I think the one out of the 3 is a hen and shes the nasty one she starts pecking at one of them then the rest join in. Shes to skinny to eat her and I dont want to just kill her out of cold blood so im going to try and do something else with her and then I think the rest will be fine together. The only way I can keep them separated right now is by letting the 2 run free range but I live on a creek bank so I have a whole mess of mink fox and coyote that come passing through all the time so I know I cant keep that up if I want them to live.

 

[Cynthia12]

That's wild, my RIRs are the biggest chickens out of my flock (no pun intended, but they are literally afraid of EVERYTHING). They hide from flies.

I've had a few different lines of RIR's in the past. And, yes, I've had some scaredy cats! The last hen I had..not! She was a stinker. Didn't hurt the others, guess she was just the head of the flock..but she would scream at me if I showed up at the nest box while she was in there..like no other. I mean, you would have thought she was broody, but I've never even had a broody hen scream at me like she did. She wasn't afraid of anything. Really didn't hurt any other birds, but she acted like she was all that.