One hen won't accept rooster, now isolating herself

[jillianjo]

We have a flock with 7 hens and 1 rooster. The hens all get along with the rooster fine except for one named Sally. All the other hens let him mount them. Some of them had some scuffles with him in the past, including our alpha hen, but even she eventually let him do his thing without fighting too much. Sally just won't accept him. When he pecks her neck to try and mount her, she just violently runs away, to the point that it's made him accidentally pull out her neck feathers that he has a hold of because she gets away. He isn't aggressive with us and isn't needlessly aggressive with any of the hens. He only pecks their neck when he's mounting them, and he doesn't seem to have a "favorite", he spreads the love (if you can call it that lol) around to everyone. Once he established dominance with all of them he didn't fight them over anything.

Sally seems to have legitimate stress about it... when she sees us she makes distressed clucking sounds. When free ranging, she won't go anywhere near him and will stay on one part of the yard, which means she's completely alone because all the other hens will hang out near the rooster. If we come sit outside, she immediately runs and jumps in our lap. She's even started roosting alone on a separate roost. She seems seriously scared of him! The strangest thing is that she was like this with our last rooster, but he was a silkie so he wasn't as big and didn't seem to cause her the same amount of stress. That rooster died of natural causes before he ever really established dominance with her, so we just don't know how long to let this go on for. She's our favorite hen and has always been the sweetest and most friendly, so we hate to see her so stressed and isolating herself. If need be, we would cull the rooster, but honestly he doesn't seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary so I would feel kind of bad about it.

Has anyone experienced this? Do we just let it run its natural course and hope she accepts him?

 

[ValerieJ]

She seems to be doing a good job of protecting herself from his advances. I would let them work it out, and not get rid of a perfectly good rooster. (or cockerel, how old is he?) If it looks like she will end up injured, that's another matter. Then you need to make a decision, but if no one gets hurt, I wouldn't worry too much. I do understand though. I don't like to see one of my chickens being separated out like that, and I have resorted to putting one picked on hen in a separate pen for a few months before. After that time, I tried reintegration and it worked out. But, I have the space to do this, and I realize not everyone does.

 

[Perris]

maybe she is just an independent hen. It is a thing. I have one, and there have been other posts about similar situations. I've even seen a kid's book about it! I would just leave her be - it is her choosing that lifestyle, after all.

 

[aart]

We have a flock with 7 hens and 1 rooster.

How old are these birds, in weeks or months?
Are all the females laying?