So, I'm a bit perplexed with my girls. Two of them hatched the chicks out and dedicated a lot of time to them when they were little. The past couple weeks, those two girls have reunited with the other two and now it's kind of "us" against "them". They have a lot of room with the large stall, a smaller run of 15x40 and now a larger "pasture" of 40x50'. The hens don't mingle with the chicks (10 weeks old), instead they are very bossy and chase them whenever one comes near. At night in the stall, there are several areas to roost. The hens always roosted on the north wall... all of the them. When the chicks went to the roost with their "moms", they were all on the west wall. These roosts are the same height and meet in the corner. Now, I have 3 hens on the north, then the chicks on the west, and at the far end of the west wall is the other hen... not one of the "moms". When they first go in for the night, the hens will keep going over and peck at the chicks that happen to be on the ends. Just a peck or two to get them agitated, then moves away. This goes on for maybe the first 20 minutes or so. I don't know how to stop it. It's like they keep them in a corner. In fact, I had to keep everyone inside 2 days ago, because there were a LOT of hawks in the area (unusual). Whenever I went out to check on them, all of the chicks were in a tight bunch in the corner. The hens were doing whatever they wanted. There are a lot of different levels of roosts in there and it is a 10x10 area, so there is plenty of room. But it's bugging me with how mean the hens are being to the chicks.
