Polish hens/Roos

[jemschicks]

I had a friend give me 3 polish hens , ( well he thought they all where hens) the one turned out to be rooster and us charging at my other flock. What can I do to stop this. I have 4 Americana hens and 1 rooster Americana they are already skiddish and the polish rooster is not helping. The other polish hens are not aggressive. Help please

 

[chooks4life]

Hello jemschicks,

Can you explain the situation a little more? It would help to know the answers to these questions: do you have the Polish and Americana separated? Under what circumstances is he charging them? Is their run really narrow?

Best wishes.

 

[jemschicks]

They are free range, wide-open space and the Americana iand the Polish are together. When they are out in the yard the white Polish flies over to them and charges them. Flapping his wings at the chicks while he's chasing them, they all are 2 1/2 months old

 

[chooks4life]

Does he actually attack them?

Chickens have a chasey game they play, basically practicing their evasive manoeuvres; he might be doing that. Unless of course he's actually attacking them.

If he's only 2 and a half months old, and he's attacking the others, that's not a good sign of what sort of chook he's going to grow into. Are you sure it's a male? Not that the gender really matters since a bully is a bully and both genders of bully kill and maim others, or just keep them continually stressed; just wondering since it's a young age generally for the gender to be ascertained at.

Best wishes.

 

[Michael OShay]

I used to raise Golden Polish which are normally a docile breed, but the meanest rooster I ever had was a Golden Polish rooster named Ivan. Ivan would attack anything and everything in his vicinity, including my own wife and children, trying to spur and peck them. Oddly enough, he never attacked me, but anyone and everything else was fair game. It's virtually impossible to break an aggessive rooster like that, and I was never able to break Ivan, so I finally just ended up removing him from the flock. After Ivan was gone, the flock settled down, the stress was gone, and my family was no longer afraid to go in with our chickens.

 

[chooks4life]

Good on you for putting the safety of your family before that of a vicious bird. Always commendable.

It's always a shame when people put the quality of life of a bully above that of every other animal and human that bully interacts with, condemning a whole flock and family to ongoing stress and threat of physical harm because they aren't ready or willing to cull or kill the aberrant one.

It's a harsh fact of keeping animals, if you have a dangerous one you have to take responsibility for the situation; easier said than done for newbies though, understandably enough. Most of us have been there.

To the OP: about your Polish, Michael OShay's observation is one I've heard repeated by quite a few different people, the nastiest male they've had was often a Polish for whatever reason. I believe their 'hairdo' has a lot to do with it, as it marks them as victims due to not being able to see the world around them properly; Polish are probably the 'pin-up child' breed when it comes to being bullied due to appearance. Their hairdos prevent them responding to normal social cues such as body language, so without intending to be in breach of etiquette, they are continually failing to show appropriate respect to superiors etc. As far as the other chooks are concerned, Polish are essentially handicapped chooks; blind.

I've never had Polish, but some random crossbreds did produce the same hairdo, and I ended up giving them 'mohawks' --- giving these sorts of chooks haircuts is not uncommon and often does wonders for their overall quality of life and even health as they can then forage better --- and it's partly comical, partly sad how cutting their hairdos to give them vision has such an amazing impact on them.

Lots of them will spend some time post-haircut just gazing at the world around them, and their characters blossom after that, going from quiet, reclusive, excessively docile sorts to active, curious birds.

Since they're default victims by type, there's a heightened risk they will overbalance in compensation for that once able to interact normally; a Polish male automatically gets his eyesight freed by the type of feathers he develops as compared to the hens, and then some excessive aggression can result. Not all are like that obviously but worth remembering that those hairdos are a serious physical and social impediment to them, causing everything from social malfunction to myopic eyesight.

Best wishes.

 

[heychickiechickie]

We had a flock of Polish, we loved them so much! We would put a pony tail holder (carefully) so they could see. Now that was cute!