Older hen attacking younger hen, time to go?

[FunnyFarm17]

Hi all, I believe I may have posted this question in the wrong category earlier, sorry about that! Figured I'd try here, since it's more a behavioral thing than an emergency.

I just discovered one of my approx. 5 month old EE hens being attacked by the head hen "Blacky" who's about 5yo (I don't know what breed she is, we got her from a friend a few years ago, but she's all black with a green sheen to her when she's in the sun).

Poor little EE is in bad shape. The entire top of her head has been pecked off. I've got her separated from the flock and got the wound cleaned up as best I could, and she's resting with food and water.

All of my other chickens, and even my two turkeys, are scared of Blacky as well. They all run when she comes around (we have a very large coup.) She's always been a bully, but she's never attacked the others before. She's currently stalking the injured EE through the fence, like she's obsessed with finishing her off.

Do I need to eliminate her from the flock? All 16 (3 older, 13 younger including the 2 turkeys) have been together in the same coup for about a month and a half now. Before we merged the flocks, they were separated but visible to each other for the first 3-4 months, and this happened out of nowhere. I'm not even sure Blacky lays anymore, might just be a freeloader at this point?

I guess I'm just looking for confirmation that it may be time to put her in a pot

Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[e72071]

I had a similar problem. It wasn't her head it was her whole back end. The first time we covered the area with blue kote and isolated her until she healed. Once we let her back into population we found the culprit doing the pecking and isolated that bird for a week. We monitored them for a while but that seemed to do the trick.

Have you tried isolation yet?

 

[21hens-incharge]

I think any bird laying or not that is terrorizing the rest needs to go.
I have processed some and gave others away for far less then that level of injury.

I would find it impossible to ever trust her again.

 

[FunnyFarm17]

I think any bird laying or not that is terrorizing the rest needs to go.
I have processed some and gave others away for far less then that level of injury.

I would find it impossible to ever trust her again.

Yeah that's exactly what I'm afraid of as well. I've been reading about the isolation thing for the last hour, but I just don't trust her. She's still stalking the poor thing. It's like she's crazed.

 

[sirrobyn0]

Wow that's pretty bad. Honestly I've only had this sort of aggression between two roosters. As others have stated separate and let the injured heal. In deciding what to do next I would consider whether or not "Blacky" has a history of doing this, whether or not "Blacky" is still a good egg producer and if you think "Blacky" would try to fight off a predator. As I already implied I have roosters. I have let my chickens go broody and hatch eggs, roosters are a part of that obviously. We had a rooster we called Fred that would attack just about anything that wasn't one of his flock. We live out in the country and we definitely have predators so when Fred started picking on two of the younger roosters we had a problem and eventually we put the two younger roosters in the freezer.

I'm not sure what you would do with "Blacky" if you got rid of her, but at 5 years old she's not going to be the most tender meal. If she is still producing eggs and might protect the flock in the event of an attack, I'd probably be inclined to get rid of the younger chicken. Your more likely to be able to rehome her if that's your thing, or if she's young enough might still be tender. I guess I'm not a good chicken farmer in the respect that I try to let my older hens that have given me eggs there entire life to live out the rest of there life in "retirement".

 

[21hens-incharge]

I seriously doubt a bully that has been a bully for years can be rehabilitated.

That injury is very serious and was a kill attack.
That hen had intentions to kill that pullet.

 

[lazy gardener]

Can you tell us the dimension of your coop and run? If they have 4 s.f. in the coop, and 10 s.f. in the run per bird (double that for each turkey), then space is not an issue. If they don't have that much room, I'd consider decreasing your flock size until you have that much space. You also might look at their protein. Have you tried increasing their protein to 18%? However, I think that you may be dealing with a behavioral issue, instead of a space requirement or a protein need issue. If both of these issues are taken care of already, I'd cull that hen from the flock. If she was in my flock, that would be my treatment plan.

 

[keesmom]

I think you have a few choices on what to do with "Blacky".

Enchiladas or green chicken chili would be my preference. If you don't like spicy then cranky hen and dumplings, good ol' noodle soup or pot pie are good too.

 

[adstowe]

I've culled birds for less. If it was only this one pullet that was an issue and the rest of your flock got along just fine otherwise, I'd cull the young one, but in this case the older one sound like she is causing the rest of your flock problems too. She's also old enough that she's really not contributing much (egg wise). I'd eliminate her. It's not worth keeping a bird that's upsetting the rest.

 

[FunnyFarm17]

Thank you everyone for the replies! I'm inclined to agree that isolation isn't going to help at this point. She's always been mean, but it just seems to be escalating.

We haven't had a rooster, and I'm almost wondering if the EE might be one? It's kind of hard to tell since they're so young still, but I'm thinking if it is a roo, that might be why Blacky attacked all of the sudden? Maybe she's worried her tyrannical reign was coming to end?

Coop is about 900 sqft all together, I'd say the run is about 650 with a smaller room with boxes that's about 250. They have a pretty healthy diet, they're a little spoiled by the hubby.