Pecking order problem?

[Cluck17]

Hi one of my RIR is being pecked but they are not hurting her and just chasing her away. When I give them treats they scare her away and she gets none. Also in the morning she is always on the floor of the coop while everybody is still resting on the roost? I know she is probably the lowest on the pecking order. Is there anything I can do about this? Is this a problem? She gets plenty of food and stays with the flock.

 

[Wezdin]

If she is new to the flock it may take a few weeks to establish the pecking order, I would just make sure that it dosent get out of hand. Also, how old is the hen? They should be close to the same size when intigrated.

 

[Col1948]

I had this when I introduced 2 new hens, someone said it was the lowest in the pecking order of the original 3 I had.
It was making sure the 2 new ones didn't rise in rank above her which made sense.
Anyway after a few weeks as already said it has calmed down, and funny enough the one doing the bullying seems to be a lot closer to one of the new ones.

Another suggestion was to put a partition if you can on the roost and place the new hen behind it when it goes dark.

 

[Cluck17]

They were all raised as chicks together since day one! All of them are 32 weeks and not laying,which is another problem.

 

[Wezdin]

Are you feeding calcium? All chickens should be laying by 32 weeks

 

[ShellyBlanco]

My 10 RIR's were born around 3/10/18 and started laying at 20 weeks, all of them. Can you post some pics of your girls? Are they ranging at all?

 

[Cluck17]

Yep they are fed calcium they are show bred birds and the RIR have slow feathering in there genes. The one RIR is squatting when I pet it. I’ll post pics in a minute

 

[Cluck17]

This is the RIR that started squatting

 

[rosemarythyme]

It's not abnormal for a bottom ranked bird to get chased away from food and treats, pushed away from roosting, etc. As long as the other birds aren't causing her harm (bloodying her, forcing her to not eat/drink at all) I wouldn't worry about it. A second roost bar can help (my bottom rank bird sits on a lower bar by herself) or maybe extra feeders, but it doesn't sound like your situation is too bad as she is still a part of the flock.

 

[sourland]

Beautiful birds. Frequently show birds have been bred with more emphasis on adherence to SOP/type/conformation rather than production. The RIR pictured is close to laying.