New member in need of help with mean chicken's!

[007Sean]

Howdy, and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

Thanks for joining our community!

 

[Kenneth Zweerink]

Welcome to BackYard Chickens, And a Big Hello from Eastern Nebraska! The Best of Luck with your Flock.

 

[Sharicemarie]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
My opinion, you have too many introductions of chickens coming and going. That causes stress each and every time you do that. You also need to whittle it down to just one male. And he should be the one that does not chase and terrorize, that looks after the girls and tidbits to them and does not have any human aggression. And then stop adding birds to your flock.

I have only added 2 chicks just after I got all my others a while back with no issues and then the ones I added recently so not sure how that is too many. It may as well be only once because the first time the others were also all new and chicks. I've never heard anything about not being able to add to your flock and the ones I had originally are not the ones I'm having problems with, it's the new ones. Also I said in my post that I did go down to one rooster and had read that could be a cause of him being so mean, that he needed to be put in check, assuming you missed that part. Am I misunderstanding what you are recommending? Don't add any chickens to my flock ever? That's making my rooster mean to the newbies and some of the newbies mean to the ones I already had?

 

[Debbie292d]

I have only added 2 chicks just after I got all my others a while back with no issues and then the ones I added recently so not sure how that is too many. It may as well be only once because the first time the others were also all new and chicks. I've never heard anything about not being able to add to your flock and the ones I had originally are not the ones I'm having problems with, it's the new ones. Also I said in my post that I did go down to one rooster and had read that could be a cause of him being so mean, that he needed to be put in check, assuming you missed that part. Am I misunderstanding what you are recommending? Don't add any chickens to my flock ever? That's making my rooster mean to the newbies and some of the newbies mean to the ones I already had?

I reread your intro as when I first read it, it sounds like you've got chicks or chickens going in and out a lot.

A lot of us posted that you should remove the rooster from the rest of them before one of them gets hurt. It might be just for a week or two. Then you can try it again.

There's another post I just read about a mean rooster who caused a very large gash in a hen's neck. It's not the first time any of us have heard of a rooster hurting a hen or chick. We just dispatched a rooster who killed a hen. It's not worth taking chances.

 

[Nomadicus]

Hello and Welcome to BYC. Glad to have you joined with us in this Poultry Loving Community.

 

[Tookie]

Welcome to BYC! Good luck with your birds.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Hi, and welcome to BYC! We're happy to have you with us!

 

[triciayoung]

I am pretty new to chickens still and first acquired 14 baby chicks a few months back. I had no problems out of them other than having too many roosters and a couple of chickens that were kinda buttheads that I decided to rehome to a friend of mine that is able to have her chickens free range. My home is very close to a kinda busy road so I don't allow mine out and about very often as I am afraid they will wonder into the road. I got 2 new chickens about a month or so in and had no problems introducing them. Recently someone gave me 7 chickens and all chaos started. I have rehomed 3 of the new chickens to the same friend already because of problems and not having enough hens for the amount of roosters I have. I also separated my "littles" from my "bigs." The bigs are doing fine. But the littles.... I had 2 roosters in the little group at first but one of the roosters was really mean to everyone and seems to be very happy back in with the bigs again so he obviously is meant to be there. So now I only have one rooster in the littles area which I've read can cause problems but I only have 6 little hens so don't have enough for 2 roosters anyways. So out of my 6 hens I have 2 that have been around since the beginning, 2 silkies, and 2 other small hens that were kept together with the previous owner. Since moving my little rooster and my 2 littles in with the 4 new hens my rooster has become a total jerk. He chases around the silkies that I don't believe are ready to mate yet while they yell out in fear until he catches them and plucks out feathers and just generally terrorizes them. The other 2 new hens that are the only ones that are laying yet have ganged up with him to terrorize. The 2 I have had since the beginning get picked on the most. The roosters does not even try to mate with them but the 2 hens that ganged up with him, and one of the silkies, are being absolutely cruel to my favorite hen. Today the mean silkie mounted my hen after this morning I found that she has a gash on her beak. I removed the rooster temporarily after the ruckus he caused yesterday to try and get some peace but the one hen that ganged up with him was still bullying the silkie that then turned around and bullied my favorite hen. I removed the mean hen that was doing the most bullying and the silkie that mounted my hen because of all of the chaos and for fear of my hen and now am at a total loss on what to do. I understand that chickens have to establish a pecking order but I cannot get myself to allow any of them to be tortured or injured by others. I am also curious as to if the hen mounting the other is really a hen and if it is possible that the other one that is bullying and plucking feathers may be a hen. If anyone can help me get some peace for these poor birds I would be so grateful because I do not have the time to babysit all day and can't stand that they may be injuring each other. How do I get my rooster to quit being so mean and trying to force hens that may be too young to mate, to do so? How do I keep my favorite hen from being mounted and the mean hens from trying to keep them from eating and drinking? Will peace ever come back to my poor littles?

Welcome. I agree with @DobieLover. How much space do they have in both their coop and run?

 

[triciayoung]

I have only added 2 chicks just after I got all my others a while back with no issues and then the ones I added recently so not sure how that is too many. It may as well be only once because the first time the others were also all new and chicks. I've never heard anything about not being able to add to your flock and the ones I had originally are not the ones I'm having problems with, it's the new ones. Also I said in my post that I did go down to one rooster and had read that could be a cause of him being so mean, that he needed to be put in check, assuming you missed that part. Am I misunderstanding what you are recommending? Don't add any chickens to my flock ever? That's making my rooster mean to the newbies and some of the newbies mean to the ones I already had?

I reread and now get what you are saying. How much space do they have? Space solves a lot of these issues.

 

[DobieLover]

I have only added 2 chicks just after I got all my others a while back with no issues and then the ones I added recently so not sure how that is too many. It may as well be only once because the first time the others were also all new and chicks. I've never heard anything about not being able to add to your flock and the ones I had originally are not the ones I'm having problems with, it's the new ones. Also I said in my post that I did go down to one rooster and had read that could be a cause of him being so mean, that he needed to be put in check, assuming you missed that part. Am I misunderstanding what you are recommending? Don't add any chickens to my flock ever? That's making my rooster mean to the newbies and some of the newbies mean to the ones I already had?

first acquired 14 baby chicks a few months back

too many roosters and a couple of chickens that were kinda buttheads that I decided to rehome to a friend of mine

I got 2 new chickens about a month or so in

Recently someone gave me 7 chickens

I have rehomed 3 of the new chickens to the same friend already because of problems and not having enough hens for the amount of roosters I have

Since moving my little rooster and my 2 littles in with the 4 new hens my rooster has become a total jerk

try and get some peace but the one hen that ganged up with him was still bullying the silkie that then turned around and bullied my favorite hen

I removed the mean hen

I'm literally dizzy with all the movements of birds in and out of the flocks in just a few months.

It also sounds like you have no roosters and no hens but cockerels and pullets and none of them were raised with or by hens and roosters. They have a lot of maturing to do and they cannot figure out their pecking order with things in such churn.

You also mention that you cannot free range so the size of the runs and what are in them become critical to establishing and maintaining peace.

Under these circumstances I would recommend no smaller than 15 square foot per bird in each setup (coop plus run). And you must provide enrichment in each run that addresses a chickens instincts to scratch, perch, dust and sun bathe and offer areas of security when the lower ranking members feel threatened and need some peace.

Can you please provide pictures of your setups?