Old angry hen

[Northernskies]

What to do? I had a flock of 5 chickens for nearly 8 years and I’m down to the last one (4 died of natural causes and one accident) over the years. I wasn’t going to rebuild the flock, but last summer when we ended up down to just one, I adopted a non laying 2 year old Barred rock to keep my old (still laying!) solo chicken company. They quickly (2 days) made friends. Apparently in January (when its night 16 hrs a day) the new chicken laid a clutch of mini eggs, musta been broody and died.
I rushed out and got a young pullet for my old gal (and 2 young silkies).
This time my old gal is a terror. She yells all day and patrols the fence that separates them. The young pullet is desperate to get in the coop (shes been in a dog carrier). theyve managed to get in the same area several times and my old chicken goes after her and pulls feather and bites her comb a d does not let up. Even if i am right there trying to grab her she keeps going at the pullet. Shes struts with her chest puffed out all day. She even behaves boldly to me. Instead of leaving the coop while i clean she paces back and forth scolding me and is in my way. Clearly it’s HER coop only.
I think she’s done laying for good and after a week of managing this drama with complicated weather issues….
I wonder if there’s any hope. I don’t have 2 coops.
Im embarrassed to admit I feel unprepared to kill her.
I booted the old gal to the dog crate/ outdoor run and the new chickens are all living happily in the coop.

I guess my question is 2 fold: is it possible being menopausal my old chicken has a different personality? and this wont calm down.
2) Im hoping breaking her neck will be easier than Im expecting if thats required. Have any of you got advice on overcoming the mental block of culling your chickens when necessary?

 

[MildlyOffensiveChicken]

What to do? I had a flock of 5 chickens for nearly 8 years and I’m down to the last one (4 died of natural causes and one accident) over the years. I wasn’t going to rebuild the flock, but last summer when we ended up down to just one, I adopted a non laying 2 year old Barred rock to keep my old (still laying!) solo chicken company. They quickly (2 days) made friends. Apparently in January (when its night 16 hrs a day) the new chicken laid a clutch of mini eggs, musta been broody and died.
I rushed out and got a young pullet for my old gal (and 2 young silkies).
This time my old gal is a terror. She yells all day and patrols the fence that separates them. The young pullet is desperate to get in the coop (shes been in a dog carrier). theyve managed to get in the same area several times and my old chicken goes after her and pulls feather and bites her comb a d does not let up. Even if i am right there trying to grab her she keeps going at the pullet. Shes struts with her chest puffed out all day. She even behaves boldly to me. Instead of leaving the coop while i clean she paces back and forth scolding me and is in my way. Clearly it’s HER coop only.
I think she’s done laying for good and after a week of managing this drama with complicated weather issues….
I wonder if there’s any hope. I don’t have 2 coops.
Im embarrassed to admit I feel unprepared to kill her.
I booted the old gal to the dog crate/ outdoor run and the new chickens are all living happily in the coop.

I guess my question is 2 fold: is it possible being menopausal my old chicken has a different personality? and this wont calm down.
2) Im hoping breaking her neck will be easier than Im expecting if thats required. Have any of you got advice on overcoming the mental block of culling your chickens when necessary?

You could separate the coop in two With chicken wire and observe for a few weeks

 

[Northernskies]

You could separate the coop in two With chicken wire and observe for a few weeks

I cant really divide the coop.

I can only separate them in the yard portion which Ive done for a week.
Its been very cold, now pouring rain so not being in the coop means i just have to bring one of them into the garage over night or they stay in the dog crate.

 

[Mrs. K]

Ugh, not fun.

I think I would try the pin-less peepers on her, before culling her, as that will be hard for you. People say they really do work, (I have never tried them) but in small set ups they can really make a difference.

good luck,

MrsK

 

[vantain]

I had this issue. I tried the pinless peepers, and in my case, it helped, for a few days, but then my hen started bleeding from her nostrils. It got bad, and she developed sores which really crusted up.

I then separated her from the flock by partitioning the coop and run, so she could see them, and interact with them, but was separated by chicken wire. I had to do that for about three weeks. Then I slowly started removing the barriers, with supervision. She was still nasty with some of them, but as long as they left her alone, she did ok. Occasionally she would go after some of them, but eventually she calmed down.

That was two years ago. She was two, they were new pullets. Here we are two years later, and she’s the boss hen! I guess that was all she wanted back then, and she earned it, and has kept it. Of the 7 hens I have, she is the smallest one, with the biggest attitude. But I have harmony within the flock.

 

[vantain]

Forgot to mention that I also considered culling my angry hen. It just started to feel like there was no hope for her. But separating her within site of the others, for three weeks, seemed to help calm her down a bit. Maybe she realized that she needed those other girls around. Also, she just needed to be the boss, and she was happy with that. Yours probably wants to ensure her place at the top of the pecking order, and that other hen looked at her the wrong way.

If you can, try to separate them, at least during the day if possible. You mentioned your coop wasn’t big enough to partition, so maybe you will have to put her in a crate each night, then put her in the separated space during the day.

How big is your coop and run?

 

[Northernskies]

Well not to jinx myself… but weve turned a corner. last night I made my old hen be the one to sleep outside. Normally there’s a heat lamp on in the coop that she is devoted to but it was a warm- tho incredibly wet night- so the lamp was off.
She refused the dog carrier with fresh dry bedding and chose to sleep in a hole she dug in the summer heat around the back of the coop (which was also dry.)
At breakfast she was waiting in the rain for me and given her own food bowl, but when she saw the new crew had food she bee lined in the coop to start a ruckus and i had to grab her and put her back in the rainy yard alone
By late afternoon she was my old chicken again.
She cooed at me and squatted when i came with treats.
I let her in the coop and i watched her and tapped her behind for a bit till she settled on the roost in the coop after dinner. Everyone spent quite a while preening - its so wet.
I checked later when i shut the doors and everyone was sleeping nicely in the roost.
Maybe this is crazy but i think the heat lamp was “her precious” or something.
I’ll never add chickens again without better separate spaces.

My coop is about 6x4 inside with 2 egg boxes attached on the outside with inside access. and one 6 ft roost board.
The run is 12x10 with only about 4x3 having overhead roofing and a 2.5 x6 area covered run thats covered on the back. In summer we have a big yard with many trees, but its just a snow bank now and i dont trust the new kids to not escape.

 

[K0k0shka]

I find that chickens get along a lot better if they are the same age. Older hens can be particularly mean to younger pullets, even if they grew up together. Something about puberty in the young ones that makes the older ones want to kill them, haha. Probably because the younger ones are potential competition that want to rise in rank and upset the order. I had something similar happen recently, with an older, dominant hen and some pullets, even though she'd been living peacefully with those pullets since they were a month old, so for 9 months! Them coming into their own as they mature was too much of a threat to the dominant hen, and she flipped out trying to reinforce her standing.

Glad to hear things are looking up. Hopefully she settles down so you can have peace in your flock. My hen required some interventions, but peace was restored and now all is fine over here, too.