My hens behaviour

[Miss Gallagher]

Hi, I have a question about my hens,
So I have 3 hens Piper is top Hen Violet is second and Poppy is third, piper and violet get along very well as they are both sisters from the same mother, poppy I rescued her from a person that wanted nothing to do with her, poppy gets along with Piper very well however violet doesn't seem to like poppy very much and seems to go after her quite a lot,
I know the pecking order is very important but I don't know if Violet is picking on poppy a bit too much or if this is to show poppy who is in charge, my hens are been together for a very long time so I don't know how this behaviour has occurred in violet?
Please help

 

[Duck Hill]

You could try to take Violet down a notch by removing her from the pen for a few minutes (or an hour) each time you see her picking on Poppy. We did this with a drake (duck) that was aggressive. After three removals in one day he stopped his aggressive behavior - he wanted to stay with his friends! A few more occasional removals were enough; he is now well behaved. Not sure if it will work, but it's worth a try.

We put our drake in a bin in the house; the others (including us) were all out in the yard with the other hens. So he was very bored. I think this motivated him.

 

[ChickenGirl555]

Similar to Duck Hill's idea, when she's being a bully, get a dog crate and lock her up for a while. Keep doing this until she stops. It will throw her down in the social ladder and make her not a big tough-guy anymore.

 

[Miss Gallagher]

Aww thank you so much for this information,
Poppy seems to be very submissive so I'm not sure if she would try to tell violet to stop it

 

[Duck Hill]

Aww thank you so much for this information,
Poppy seems to be very submissive so I'm not sure if she would try to tell violet to stop it

That is exactly the issue. This is not something Poppy can do. When you isolate Violet, you take her down a notch... The goal here is NOT to change the pecking order (which should remain the same). The goal is to make Violet come down until she is slightly higher than the others instead of wayyy on top the the mountain "I can bully everyone" higher. Poppy will gain some confidence and will rise a bit (but not enough to challenge Violet). Then everyone can live together, with an established pecking order but no need to fight over it since the three positions will now be only slightly different from each other.

 

[Miss Gallagher]

What would you suggest to bring violet down a notch to stop her from bullying poppy? I'm open to all suggestions that people have as I love my girls and want them to live happily together

 

[Chickassan]

Violet is second in line, number two is usually "abusive" to numbers three and below. This is totally normal and very noticeable to you since you only have three hens. If Violet ever gets top spot whoever is under her will become pushy to anyone under her rank, think of second position as the muscle of the flock where number one is the brains. Unless you see bloodshed you should let them work it out, they know what they're doing.

 

[m1chelle1]

Violet is second in line, number two is usually "abusive" to numbers three and below. This is totally normal and very noticeable to you since you only have three hens. If Violet ever gets top spot whoever is under her will become pushy to anyone under her rank, think of second position as the muscle of the flock where number one is the brains. Unless you see bloodshed you should let them work it out, they know what they're doing.

that's really interesting....thanks

 

[TheTwoRoos]

This is normal.Of course hens who have lived in the same space together for years are gonna en furious.This is what needs to happen to establish order.Just make sure there lots of watering and feeding stations.

 

[Miss Gallagher]

Thank you so much for this information, I highly appreciate all the help everyone is giving me, thank you