New to backyard chickens

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Ilovemycutehens

Ilovemycutehens

Hatching
7 Years
Aug 13, 2012
2
0
7
Hi, My name is Nathalie. I live in British-Columbia, Canada. I found your site while searching about chickens on Internet. I really like backyard chickens because you can find lots of informations. It is good for me because I am new at raising chickens. I am really glad that I found your site and hope I will find some answer to my questions.

On june 9th 2012 I adopted 6 black sex link chickens born on march 31 2012. The coop is 4 x 8 and the outside area is 8 x 12. They have 3 nesting boxes and perch to climb on.
On august 9, a first hen started to lay and now on august 20 I have 5 hens laying I already had 18 eggs.

But I have a problem since they started laying because they seems to be more pecky.
The first hen that laid is really bossy and she rules everything in the coop. The other ones are scared of her and she is also pecking really bad on the rejected one. She jumps on her or she runs at her when she is eating her pellets.

At night she is literally beating the poor hen because she doesn't want her to be on the perch with her and the other ones. My daughter and I are affraid that she is going to be hurt. What can we do? Is the Coop too small? Should we do something or do they have to work their stuff out?
Thanks for your help.
 
Last edited:
I don't have experience with chickens so can't be of help but you may get more responses in the "managing your flock section".
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from Ohio!

The top hen has taken the place of the Alpha Roo in your flock.

What you describe is not unusual. The phrase "pecking order" is rightly named. Chickens peck, hens are the worst. At first we isolated the picked on chick or chicken. We felt sorry for them, but we weren't doing them any favors.

After several "mean girl" females we learned to separate the troublemaker for a few days. We borrowed a cage from a friend and placed it in the high traffic area of the barn, where every chicken can see the cage of shame occupant. They stay in the cage until they stop acting out, and calm down, but always at least 2 days.

** Note - if the picked on chicken is injured you may have to isolate her to allow her to heal away from the pecking, but also remove the troublemaker. **

When the mean girl is released, she is now on the bottom of the pecking order and must work her way back into the order.

It works for us, hope that it helps you.
 
mkcolls said:
After several "mean girl" females we learned to separate the troublemaker for a few days. We borrowed a cage from a friend and placed it in the high traffic area of the barn, where every chicken can see the cage of shame occupant. They stay in the cage until they stop acting out, and calm down, but always at least 2 days.

** Note - if the picked on chicken is injured you may have to isolate her to allow her to heal away from the pecking, but also remove the troublemaker. **
Click to expand...

I'd second that advice.

We had a lot of chicks all at once, so it was a little bit hard to figure out who was doing the damage to the other birds. Of course anyone who got pecked enough to have red spots went into the hospital area, and when we finally figured out it was the White Leghorns who were the mean girls, they went into a 4' x 10' "naughty cage" parked in the main coop. I wish we could have isolated each one separately, but we just let them form their own flock in there hoping they could teach each other how to behave. They didn't. Eventually we re-homed the white leghorns with someone we hope can pasture or free-range them without jeopardizing an entire flock, and I gather they are still super mean. What a shame ... I was looking forward to their vast quantities pretty white eggs, and they are very attractive birds! Once we get the rooster garden apartments set up, we'll have a series of smaller cages we can use for time outs if we should ever need to do that again.

The cool thing is hens who were in the hospital together (usually our Easter Eggers) are now the sweetest birds and the best buddies. It is lovely to see them taking care of each other.
 

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