Rooster terrorizing one hen

[Szollman]

I introduced 4 new banty hens to my reg sized flock a few weeks ago. Three of the banties have joined the flock just fine, but one hen gets jumped by my Barred Rock roo every time she leaves the coop. She has been staying inside all the time. I have to give her food where she's perched and set her down next to the water. She eats and drinks like crazy every time. If I put her in the yard, she just crouches and looks around and clucks nervously. And he will find her and ride her. He's gigantic compared to her, afraid he's going to hurt her. (we have a small banty flock of a roo and 5 hens) The funny thing is, the roo won't get on any of our reg hens, just this one banty! He is 17 weeks, she is about a year and a half. Any suggestions as to how I can help or will this stop? Help!

 

[ParadiseFoundFarm]

If there is that big a difference between thier size, can you use some wood to make an open cage with bars comming down only large enough for the banties to get through. Make the tops solid wood so he can't hurt them and they have shade.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Aww poor girl...I would remove the banties so she doesn't have to go through that

The roo is only going to get bigger and she is obviously the bottom of the pecking order and he's letting her know that. And she may turn into his 'favorite' hen. I have heard of large roos killing bantam hens when mating

 

[SaraFL]

The way I read your post, it sounds like you have a separate bantam flock? Why not put her in the bantam flock?

 

[Nostalchic]

I had a similar situation last year, but with two young roosters (about the same age as yours) and my favorite (read: most friendly, docile, but way down in the pecking order) buff orpington hen. They picked on her constantly, bloodied her comb, tore out feathers until she wouldn't go into the coop at all, and one night ended up spending a very cold, wet night out in a snowstorm. I had to keep her inside with the dogs for a few days to recover. The roosters, however, did NOT recover. The thing is, they weren't mating her - which they would do with my other hens, they were just beating her up. I've thought about this a lot, and my theory is that the young roosters, who grew up in the flock, start feeling like moving up the ladder a bit but are still intimidated by the more dominant hens, and start to exert their "authority" on the least able/willing-able-to-defend-themselves members. If she had been killed, or driven out, I think they would have started on the next lowest ranked member of the flock. I'm not sure how this would have ended had the roos survived my wrath, but this year I hatched out another Wheaten Maran rooster, which I want to keep - if the same thing happens, I'm going to separate him from the flock, putting him with a few mean, dominant hens who can defend themselves, until he hopefully grows out of his adolescent psycopathic stage and can be nice. I've wondered if there were an older rooster around to defend his girls (which I don't have) if this maybe wouldn't have happened.

 

[ParadiseFoundFarm]

Either way, that banty needs an escape or there will be serious consequences.

 

[sourland]

Remove her before he kills her or kill her humanely. He's breeding her because he can get away with this behavior. Just normal chicken behavior, but common sense dictates that you should protect the hen.

 

[ParadiseFoundFarm]

Quote:

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[Szollman]

Our banties are mixed with our reg chickens and so far this is the only real issue - there is of course the pecking order scuffles, but this one little hen is terrorized. I will try to devise a box like was suggested, but I'm afraid she is too timid to even do that - I may have to give her away

 

[Mattemma]

I would give her away.Poor thing.