Pecking Order

[Ascholten]

So whenever you get chickens they will establish a pecking order. They will quibble / quarrel / and sometimes outright fight until this is established. Sometimes it can take a month or more I am told

With that, lets say you had an established flock, and remove one for a while, then re introduce her. Is the pecking order kind of 'remembered' or do they have to go through ALL that again? If it's remembered, for how long. If you remove her for a day, then yah they probably are not going to revert, if you remove her for a month? Will that kick off a new 'pecking order assembly to the chicken thunderdome'? What is around the threshold time to have a reintroduce be seen like a totally new bird? or do they always remember sort of?

Aaron

 

[KingD]

Only one way to find out

 

[Ascholten]

Well, that is true, but was wondering if someone did the work before me so we could compare notes, that peer review over chicken nuggets from failed subjects thing Then we could start a new topic, which bully taste the best?

Aaron

 

[Ridgerunner]

So whenever you get chickens they will establish a pecking order. They will quibble / quarrel / and sometimes outright fight until this is established. Sometimes it can take a month or more I am told

Or it can be over almost immediately, sometimes so smoothly you don't even see it happening. When you deal with behaviors of living animals there is no guarantee on anything. Sometimes you read stuff on this forum where people make it sound like chickens are programmable bots and every one in the whole wide world will act exactly the same. That is not reality, each chicken has its individual personality and each flock has its own dynamics. Those can vary a lot, even if they are the same breed.

With that, lets say you had an established flock, and remove one for a while, then re introduce her. Is the pecking order kind of 'remembered' or do they have to go through ALL that again? If it's remembered, for how long. If you remove her for a day, then yah they probably are not going to revert, if you remove her for a month? Will that kick off a new 'pecking order assembly to the chicken thunderdome'? What is around the threshold time to have a reintroduce be seen like a totally new bird? or do they always remember sort of?

See the above. I have no idea how long any one specific bird might remember, let alone how long each bird in the flock might remember. I don't know what you are thinking about doing so I can't offer any suggestions other than try it and see what happens. Be prepared for anything.

 

[Ascholten]

I have had a few birds just immediately take to each other, and run around the yard like one big 3 headed, 6 legged chicken. And there's the B$%ch who just HAS to cause trouble every time she comes around. I was just curious if there was some research on this or not or if someone else had prior experiences. Do pecking orders pretty much get remembered for a long time or is it like Altzeimers, where each morning, there's a brand new flock

Aaron