Sassy chicken body slams me when I enter coop!

[chickens really]

If you hand feed or treat them with stuff other than feed?.
Of course they get pushy..

*Edited by staff*

Oh..

 

[Folly's place]

Some birds get braver as they mature, especially cockerels. I gave up on red sex-links and any production reds because of their more difficult behaviors.
Mary

 

[speckledhen]

We're rarely seen aggression in hens, but there are exceptions. We've put up with the Tiny Terrorist for almost 8 years now. She has very bad eyesight so she seems to become very frustrated, or so it seems to us. All the hens hate her. She cannot pick up a grain or see a bug, but must have a pile of food to eat from. She has odd lineage, came from a BBS Ameraucana flock out of a blue egg, but is an obvious throwback to some Sumatra way back somewhere-she looks more Sumatra than Ameraucana. And she has spurs. And she uses them. She flogs and attacks and bites...but not me, only my husband. He has literally grabbed her by her neck and thrown her across the coop when she attacked his face on several occasions, just reacting to the attack. On the other hand, she loves attention from me. I've cultivated a different relationship with Tiny by picking her up when she hasn't asked for it, feeding her by herself and talking to her and she can most definitely tell the difference between us. She always acts like a little baby with me. Tiny almost died at 3 days old and would have if I had not noticed that she was running over the feeder and watching the other chicks eat, but acted like she did not see the food...and she needed more contrast in the food color and the feeder it was in. After that, she learned and survived....and God help me, will probably outlive them all!
A Tiny story from 2011 is here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...become-a-suicide-flogger.552816/#post-7102527

My Delaware hen, Georgie, has become insistent on getting attention in her old age; she will be 9 yrs old in February. The last two years, she's began rushing or biting to get attention. She wants to sit on your shoulder like an 8 lb parrot. She was always a pest but the last couple of years, she can be a terrible annoyance. I make allowances for her at her advanced age, but Delawares are attention seekers. She's just taken it to another level now in her twilight years, but she's been tossed a time or two for biting my leg or my DH's leg. And she comes right back at you on occasion. Crazy old thing.

 

[sesameandginger]

These are great suggestions! Sesame is the black one on the left... I am gonna try the 'hold her down' approach so I can establish dominance without any pain, followed by a snuggle since she does let me pick her up and preen her. I have set the precedent of daily garden scraps all summer so she's probably experiencing some winter boredom too. Chickens never cease to amaze me with their complexity!

 

[sourland]

Sesame even looks like a 'tough old broad'.

 

[8 Chicks 1967]

Sesame even looks like a 'tough old broad'.

Yeah, looks just like she is thinking. "What the cluck are you looking at?"

 

[BantyChooks]

But did you allow them in your space ?..

Yes, as long as it was done in an appropriate manner. I'm not a mean old piece of cardboard, I think chicks are cute and like to see them playing around my feet.

Once they reach about a month and a half, or when they go outside, I pretty much stop handling them entirely, except for occasional check-overs. They have ouchy pin feathers anyway and have usually begun a skittish stage then.

After POL then I will handle them more again. Well, not the red stars, because they were layer birds, but the others I will. By then they have fully figured out a pecking order and what's expected of them. Layers aren't handled much because they are sold after two years or so, and I am a softie that gets attached easily.

An example of how it really differs bird to bird would be my lovely Jazzy. She is the most naturally docile bird I have ever come across. From day one she just loved to be around people and remained that way all the way through adulthood. She is very calm, even around children, and will patiently endure hugs and pets from them. I do not keep her out of my space, because there is no need. She has never even looked at me sideways.

Perhaps if I kept them away period there might have been a difference. Who knows. I'd have been more inclined to keep them and experiment if they weren't rubbish at laying after one year.

 

[speckledhen]

Hen aggression is something that we just rarely hear much about. We are always hearing, "what happened to my baby rooster? He always loved cuddles and now, he attacks me all the time!". I have three Large Fowl roosters who are more gentle than some of my hens. Doesn't matter if they were handled or not handled, they come from lines of non-aggressive males for the most part.

The big guy in my avatar, my blue partridge Brahma, is fine with my putting my arms around him when he's on the roost, but though he's as sweet as they come, I don't try to force attention on him when he's on duty outside with his girls. He has a job to do and I would be getting in the way. My almost 4 yr old Barred Rock rooster, Atlas, is as easygoing as they come. Neither asks to be picked up, though my late Delaware rooster, Isaac, was an absolute gigolo, LOL. My BR rooster, Hector, likes a chest rub when he's inside, but he doesn't like having attention paid to him outside. And he will panic if you try to pick him up so we don't unless we have to do something like trim a spur.

We have a couple of hens who don't like to be touched at all and a couple will bite the fire out of you if you try (no, not Tiny this time). Then, some will bite if you don't pick them up, like Georgie and one of the older Stukel line BR hens, Wynette. My friend used to say that love from Georgie and Wynette was painful, LOL. But, that's not what I'd call aggression, not like Tiny. I'm truly amazed that Tiny has lived to be almost 8 years old, she's been tossed so many times after an attack.

 

[bobbi-j]

Every time I enter the run and open the coop, my black star hen (top ranking official in the flock haha) will run at me and bump into me, making herself known! I can't tell if she wants attention/affection or she's expressing anger at me? She doesn't try to peck me or make noise, just uses her body to strongly nudge my leg, although today when I confronted her, she flew up and kinda gestured like a peck was imminent! Anyone experience such an expressive bird?! Maybe she is just bored or mad that I didn't open the door early enough? Thoughts?

Thanks

My thought is she's trying to show dominance, as others have mentioned. I would not allow this behavior to continue.

 

[azygous]

If you try to spend time with your flock, after a while you will learn what behaviors mean by taking them in context.

For example, I have a very young hen, just began to lay, and she happens to adore being held and cuddled. She's also very assertive about letting me know when she wants to be picked up. She comes up behind me and gives me a peck on the back of the leg or she "paws" me with her foot.

She isn't trying to show dominance. She's telling me in the only way she can that she wants to be loved because chickens communicate with their beaks, mostly.

Another hen might see me and give me a swift peck if I come too near to her. I have learned that this isn't a sign she wants to be handled because I've learned that she hates to be touched. So, a peck from this hen means something entirely different.

We humans get pretty good at reading the "body language" of people we associate with. It's the same with our chickens. They have body language, too, and it's not difficult to read it if we take the time.