Self-Appointed Coop Manager making trouble...

[ManOverBoard]

Sometimes the flock seems to do great for a while and then sometimes it seems that a whole slew of things start going wonky for no apparent reason. One of the things we're trying to sort out now is a micro-managing hen. She's not at the top of our pecking order, however she has given herself the role of what we call 'coop manager'.

She's a red and grey colored Ameracauna who sticks her nose (rather beak) into everything!

Anytime we do any work in the coop she's right there in our face supervising, staring us down, investigating the tools...
She also does the same thing to all our other hens when they are laying. If she notices someone in the nest box, she's up there, over their shoulder watching them like a quality control inspector, all up in their space even trying to get a look at the backsides. We've tried providing little tuck away nest boxes so only one hen can get in them and be hidden away to lay, as we usually have a week or three of trouble with 7-9 hens trying to lay an egg all at the same time in one box every spring/summer, but not one of flock used any of the hide away options, they all INSIST on using our big open nest boxes, and if we take them away, oh boy does it cause trouble.

The most concerning role of our self-appointed coop manager comes and goes.
From time to time she'll get on an afternoon egg inspecting kick.
We know that most hens are done laying by mid-day, however, our flock seems to lay all day long some eggs even showing up around dinnertime. As such, we usually collect the eggs when we go to tuck the girls in at night.
However, whenever our little manager gets on her egg inspecting kick we find we lose an egg a day.
We've witnessed her making what seems like a harmless trip up onto the perches in the coop during the afternoon to visit us, but then she'll hop into one of the nest boxes and start looking over all the eggs. She'll roll some around, twist her head around looking at them from all angles and then all of a sudden, she'll just hammer one of them with one hard peck!
Then she hops back out and is on her way.
It's like that one egg didn't pass muster and so she marks it with a big old crack/dent.
Obviously, this makes for a debate about how edible that one egg is after it's been potentially compromised by her pecking it, but the bigger issue is if she happens to peck it too hard and it busts. When this happens, she sounds the alarm and an all-out game of 'capture the flag' breaks out in the coop as she seems to try to remove the busted egg from the nest, and everyone chases each other around eating the remains of the egg.

This makes us worry about cultivating egg eating, however it seems that they only eat the one and no attempts on any of the other eggs are made. We'll find a nice batch of eggs in the box at the end of the evening and just a little remnant of yolk on a few shavings in the box as a tell-tale sign of the carnage.

In our concern, we have begun to remove the eggs more frequently throughout the day, hoping to get them out before our little inspector gets to them, unfortunately though, this has resulted in a drop in egg production. Going from 13-18 eggs a day down to 9-12 eggs a day. We also had just started selling eggs and had just acquired a nice group of patrons, only now production is so slow that we've had to put a sold-out sign in the egg box, telling people to check back again in a few days.

Any thoughts on how to manage our micro-managing hen?

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

You could add some curtains on your big open nest to inhibit her view of the eggs.

 

[Mrs. K]

Once in a while, you get a bird that is not working out in your flock. She destroys the peace of the flock, and your enjoyment of the flock. Sell her or eat her.

This will improve everything. It always is kind of hard when you lose a hen, but as my granddaughter says, 'well, now we can get chicks!' Really a flock should not be a stagnant, same group of birds. Young birds need to come into the flock and other birds need to leave the flock. I keep a flock, and I solve problems for the flock. Individual birds come and go as needed.

Always solve for peace in the flock.

You might try pin-less peepers. But honestly, I would cull her. Chickens really are not BFF material.

Mrs K

 

[BurbCoop]

Ugh, we have one of “those” hens right now too Curtains on the nesting boxes have helped a little, but some days she just goes off the rails and tries to micro manage all laying activities - the WORST

We’ve been having some long term egg quality issues. If those issues weren’t present well before her becoming a member of the flock, I would think she was the primary cause of it all.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Once in a while, you get a bird that is not working out in your flock. She destroys the peace of the flock, and your enjoyment of the flock. Sell her or eat her.

This will improve everything. It always is kind of hard when you lose a hen, but as my granddaughter says, 'well, now we can get chicks!' Really a flock should not be a stagnant, same group of birds. Young birds need to come into the flock and other birds need to leave the flock. I keep a flock, and I solve problems for the flock. Individual birds come and go as needed.

Always solve for peace in the flock.

You might try pin-less peepers. But honestly, I would cull her. Chickens really are not BFF material.

Mrs K

I totally agree.

Plus what she is doing could easily lead one to becoming an egg eater, a chicken that purposely opens an egg to eat it. You do not want that, trust me.

You'll see a lot of people say that there are too many good roosters out there to put up with a bad one. That's even more true about hens.

 

[LaFleche]

Sell her or eat her.

This exactly.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

I love the way you tell this story and I laughed, but I'm also laughing as I have a similar scenario. I am not sure what brings on this behavior & I've tried relocating the egg pecker to a different section, different coop...she resumes the same routine. So unfortunately, I have no worthwhile advice, only empathy.

 

[ManOverBoard]

I love the way you tell this story and I laughed, but I'm also laughing as I have a similar scenario. I am not sure what brings on this behavior & I've tried relocating the egg pecker to a different section, different coop...she resumes the same routine. So unfortunately, I have no worthwhile advice, only empathy.

Thank you!
We're wonder if we should try that beak clipping technique we've heard about for keeping hens from hurting each other while pecking

 

[Liz Birdlover]

Thank you!
We're wonder if we should try that beak clipping technique we've heard about for keeping hens from hurting each other while pecking

I can't bring myself to do that. I did buy the snap on pinless peepers & they did stop aggressive behavior. Even though they're pinless, they do still kinda damage or irritate nares, so I only used them a few weeks, removed them, & only saw 2 being mean again, so put the pinless peepers back in those 2 for 2 weeks, then removed them...every hen behaved well & I did not have to use them again. That happened with my Barred Rocks years ago. I have 3 new Barred Rock hens, they have not been ornery. I do have RIR hens, a few like ripping out feathers for some reason, picked my poor gentle Roo bald around his neck, so I had to put those girls with a different Roo, who wouldn't put up with that.
The pinless peepers were good for my extreme case back then, have not had to use them again...yet anyway.

Recently, I did get hen Saddles though. The purpose was the damage Roosters were doing to the feathered backs of the girls. But when I dressed them with the Saddles, the ones with wing guards, Everyone seemed to be calmer. Go figure.

 

[OhMyDuck]

Sometimes the flock seems to do great for a while and then sometimes it seems that a whole slew of things start going wonky for no apparent reason. One of the things we're trying to sort out now is a micro-managing hen. She's not at the top of our pecking order, however she has given herself the role of what we call 'coop manager'.

She's a red and grey colored Ameracauna who sticks her nose (rather beak) into everything!

Anytime we do any work in the coop she's right there in our face supervising, staring us down, investigating the tools...
She also does the same thing to all our other hens when they are laying. If she notices someone in the nest box, she's up there, over their shoulder watching them like a quality control inspector, all up in their space even trying to get a look at the backsides. We've tried providing little tuck away nest boxes so only one hen can get in them and be hidden away to lay, as we usually have a week or three of trouble with 7-9 hens trying to lay an egg all at the same time in one box every spring/summer, but not one of flock used any of the hide away options, they all INSIST on using our big open nest boxes, and if we take them away, oh boy does it cause trouble.

The most concerning role of our self-appointed coop manager comes and goes.
From time to time she'll get on an afternoon egg inspecting kick.
We know that most hens are done laying by mid-day, however, our flock seems to lay all day long some eggs even showing up around dinnertime. As such, we usually collect the eggs when we go to tuck the girls in at night.
However, whenever our little manager gets on her egg inspecting kick we find we lose an egg a day.
We've witnessed her making what seems like a harmless trip up onto the perches in the coop during the afternoon to visit us, but then she'll hop into one of the nest boxes and start looking over all the eggs. She'll roll some around, twist her head around looking at them from all angles and then all of a sudden, she'll just hammer one of them with one hard peck!
Then she hops back out and is on her way.
It's like that one egg didn't pass muster and so she marks it with a big old crack/dent.
Obviously, this makes for a debate about how edible that one egg is after it's been potentially compromised by her pecking it, but the bigger issue is if she happens to peck it too hard and it busts. When this happens, she sounds the alarm and an all-out game of 'capture the flag' breaks out in the coop as she seems to try to remove the busted egg from the nest, and everyone chases each other around eating the remains of the egg.

This makes us worry about cultivating egg eating, however it seems that they only eat the one and no attempts on any of the other eggs are made. We'll find a nice batch of eggs in the box at the end of the evening and just a little remnant of yolk on a few shavings in the box as a tell-tale sign of the carnage.

In our concern, we have begun to remove the eggs more frequently throughout the day, hoping to get them out before our little inspector gets to them, unfortunately though, this has resulted in a drop in egg production. Going from 13-18 eggs a day down to 9-12 eggs a day. We also had just started selling eggs and had just acquired a nice group of patrons, only now production is so slow that we've had to put a sold-out sign in the egg box, telling people to check back again in a few days.

Any thoughts on how to manage our micro-managing hen?

This was a hilarious read! I have the same situation but at work with a self- appointed wannabe manager , so I’ll follow that thread for possible solutions