Scared silkie hen

[jade eastwood]

I have a little black silkie hen who seems traumatised from a rooster we’ve had previously, she currently lives in a flock of a few other hens and a silkie rooster, she has never had a problem with the silkie rooster until we got an Australorp rooster, he was living with my other hens and another rooster who was his best friend. I sold him last week because he was being to aggressive with my hens and they were scared to leave the perch. Once I sold him all the girls seemed to be fine exept for this little one. As you can imagine a silkie compared to a large australorp rooster is quite a difference in size so no wonder she was scared. Except now she’s scared of my silkie roo, he is a super sweet rooster and she used to love him but now she’s also scared of him. She isn’t eating properly and Everytime I take her off the perch to eat she flys back up as soon as I leave her side. My roo gets a little excited when she comes down (I assume because she doesn’t see him very often) and chases after her. Is there a way to show my hen that it is alright for her to come down and is there a way I can teach my rooster to not chase her so much. I’m thinking of setting up her own little cage where she can recover, but what are your thoughts?

 

[Callender Girl]

Some gentle souls need more time to recover from trauma than others.

I have never had any luck teaching a rooster not to want to frolic with hens, but if you put her in a separate cage, I would think it would be hard for her to reintegrate with her flock.

One of my roosters is a little jerk. When I let his girls out to wander around the yard for the day, I leave Billy Boy in the coop/run so he can see and talk to them. but doesn't spend his whole day harassing them and me. His hens, one of which has NO feathers left on her shoulders from his constant attention, like to settle in beside the run and hang out with him through the fencing. Maybe if your girl could see that your roo is not a threat, she would return to enjoying his company.

Good luck with whatever you find that works!

 

[jade eastwood]

Some gentle souls need more time to recover from trauma than others.

I have never had any luck teaching a rooster not to want to frolic with hens, but if you put her in a separate cage, I would think it would be hard for her to reintegrate with her flock.

One of my roosters is a little jerk. When I let his girls out to wander around the yard for the day, I leave Billy Boy in the coop/run so he can see and talk to them. but doesn't spend his whole day harassing them and me. His hens, one of which has NO feathers left on her shoulders from his constant attention, like to settle in beside the run and hang out with him through the fencing. Maybe if your girl could see that your roo is not a threat, she would return to enjoying his company.

Good luck with whatever you find that works!

Thankyou so much. I left him in the yard today with a few others that were hungry and spent some time feeding up the little hen, she ended up with a fairly full crop by the end of it. I will keep him in tomorrow but I don’t get home until 3:30pm and they get let out from then till dark (besides weekends) I have two yards so I could perhaps either keep him in the silkie yard and let the others free range all day, or put him in the second yard. Except he isn’t best of friends with the other rooster in there so that might not work out.