Separate the bully or the bullied?

[TwoCrows]

Thanks for the advice. I ordered pinless peepers today in case we have to use them. She is still in chicken jail till Thursday. Can you give me some advice on how to reintroduce the bully back into the flock?

If she has only been in jail for one week, she will probably go right back to her bully behavior. Since you have come this far with her, I would leave her in jail for another week and see how that goes. On the day of reintroduction, do it on a day you can stand by and spend the day looking in on them to make sure she is not still a monster. If she behaves that day, keep an eye on all of them for a week and most likely for the rest of this birds days. If she is still aggressive, you may have to remove her again or try the peepers on her.

It is difficult if not impossible to change a chickens personality. If they are aggressive, generally they stay that way. Sometimes the aggression is due to a health problem, something may be lacking in the feed or many times the aggression is a space issue. If you have tried to fix all these possibilities to no avail, you can only hope that as the bird ages, her personality mellows. My flock leader can be brutal to the other hens and has even turned on me early on. She is almost 3 years old and has worn peepers on and off, (a few months here and there) since she was 6 months old. She is better over all for the most part and is not as aggressive and mean as she used to be. (She was a comb ripper to the hens and attacked humans). I don't know if it was all the time spent wearing peepers or she has just mellowed with age.

Good luck!

 

[crazychick26201]

Thank you so much for your support. Here is the latest in the saga of Chicky Yellow Feet (YF) who is the bully and the rest of the flock, including Miss Roo (the bullied), Buffy (Yellow Feet's best bud), and Henrietta (flock leader).

We had to be out of town Weds., so kept YF in jail, and the others in their coop/enclosed run for the day. When we got home, we let YF out to forage in her little run, and the. Others out in their fenced yard. YF had had enough of aloneness. She flew over her fence and ran right over to the fenced yard. Buffy got so excited to see YF that she flew over her fence and they went off to happily forage together, We lured them back into the yard with a handful of sunflower seeds, and there we were. With a flock of 4 one day early. Yellow Feet has been bumped down a notch or two in pecking order, Buffy and Henrietta are both pecking at her. YF continues to peck at and harass Miss Roo, but Miss Roo has stopped running away and just ruffles her feathers instead. No blood drawn yet. On the roost, Henrietta continues to shelter Roo, and YF is at the end of the roost. I have stay Ed out there most of today, and plan to tomorrow. Can not do this indefinitely. I hope YF is reformed, but I guess time will tell. I have the pinless peepers on standby.

This all occurred because we tried to take a vacation and left our chickens in the care of someone who was really too busy to give them attention.

I have six grandchildren who I would like to visit occasionally. How do others get away without their chickens attacking each other?

 

[TwoCrows]

Thank you so much for your support. Here is the latest in the saga of Chicky Yellow Feet (YF) who is the bully and the rest of the flock, including Miss Roo (the bullied), Buffy (Yellow Feet's best bud), and Henrietta (flock leader).

We had to be out of town Weds., so kept YF in jail, and the others in their coop/enclosed run for the day. When we got home, we let YF out to forage in her little run, and the. Others out in their fenced yard. YF had had enough of aloneness. She flew over her fence and ran right over to the fenced yard. Buffy got so excited to see YF that she flew over her fence and they went off to happily forage together, We lured them back into the yard with a handful of sunflower seeds, and there we were. With a flock of 4 one day early. Yellow Feet has been bumped down a notch or two in pecking order, Buffy and Henrietta are both pecking at her. YF continues to peck at and harass Miss Roo, but Miss Roo has stopped running away and just ruffles her feathers instead. No blood drawn yet. On the roost, Henrietta continues to shelter Roo, and YF is at the end of the roost. I have stay Ed out there most of today, and plan to tomorrow. Can not do this indefinitely. I hope YF is reformed, but I guess time will tell. I have the pinless peepers on standby.

This all occurred because we tried to take a vacation and left our chickens in the care of someone who was really too busy to give them attention.

I have six grandchildren who I would like to visit occasionally. How do others get away without their chickens attacking each other?

So glad to hear that attitudes have changed around your chicken yard! If the birds are young enough, many times "jail" can rearrange the pecking order. But when the birds are older, 2, 3 or 4 years old, it is difficult to change their ways.

Just keep an eye on all of them as time goes on. It never hurts to have peepers on hand, especially during molting season. I recently had a hen just poof off all her feathers from her wings up to the top of her head and was completely bald. The rest of the flock thought something was wrong with her or possibly she was some alien chicken! They all attacked her violently, scareing her to death, even ripping out new growing feathers. So the "offenders" wore peepers until this molting bird grew in feathers enough to again look like a chicken. LOL

As for other folks with aggressive chickens....It helps to have a rooster around. They keep the peace within the flock, and hens under control. If there is no rooster around, many times a hen will take that spot. That is when the aggression can get out of control within a hen only flock. All this being said, many people do keep roosters and don't have as much trouble with pecking order squabbles with hens. Rooster on rooster is another story....

 

[crazychick26201]

Thank you so much for all the support and advice. It is so great to know there are chicken keepers out there who are willing to share their experience with a newbie. There is so much the books just don't cover.

So far things are fairly peaceful, although Yellow Feet is still king of growling at Miss Roo and chasing her around a bit. No more damage though. I am actually thinking about getting a rooster, but we will see. It was not in the original plan.

 

[DimondaleBergs]

What if you have more than one bully? Do you separate them all at once?

 

[cath0617]

I have the same issues right now with 2 of my gold laced Wyandotte are pecking to the point they are making others bleed. If I put these 2 in isolation what about night time? They usually go into the hen house to roost. They wouldn't be able to roost in the isolation cage I have for them...

 

[Exning]

I posted this in a different group but I think it might be more relevant here:

Hello there! I have 3 chickens: Mardigan, Dorito and Chuck that have all grown up together (they are a year old). Mardigan and Chuck hang out while Dorito has been doing her own thing, no problem. But today my favorite chicken, Dorito, decided she utterly hates Chuck. She tries to attack her every chance she gets, for no reason, and now Chuck has resorted in hiding in the back pen part where its the hottest. Shes so afraid and Dorito doesnt stop as long as she sees her. My bf had to sit out there pretty much all day and tried separating for a few hrs but no luck. I dont know what to do or why its happening! Has this happened to you?Dorito also likes to try to go into the nesting box at night away from the other chickens. Weve been blocking it off but since she is being evil we didnt block it tonight and she's already in there

 

[sbhkma]

One of my hens, "Don't Touch Me Annie" (who was raised with my other 4 hens) decided about 8 weeks ago that she hated one of my other hens. They're all 15 months old now. I caught Annie chasing Sophie in the run, corner her and jump on her back, ripping feathers out and pecking at her. She'd chase her outside on our 10 acres as well. So I separated Annie for almost 3 weeks. Put them back together and Annie went after Sophie with a vengeance. I put an ad on Craigslist that day to rehome her. I let the new owner know she was being rehomed because she's a bully and in my small 5-hen (now 4-hen) flock I just didn't know what else to do. Annie went to a home with 30 hens and 2 roos and has fit in much better there. Annie's full name of "Don't Touch Me Annie" is one she earned when she was about 5 weeks old. She's never been mean or aggressive to humans. I could pick her up easily once I got her cornered. But she always hated other chickens touching her and was a bit of a bully. Once she was full-blown I was simply not having it. My flock has been Annie-free for a month now and they're all much calmer, even on the roost poles at night. Peace in the flock is priceless.

 

[Exning]

We're still having a hard time with our hens, its been a few days of this change. Chuck was the aggressor towards Mardigan and Dorito tries to beat up Chuck real badly. We have chuck in chicken jail but dorito keeps trying to get her when we let her out to free range. We tried letting them sleep together but the first thing Chuck did was go after Mardigan. What should we do?

 

[sbhkma]

How aggressive are the attacks? Pecking and lots of squawking or is blood being drawn? That was the indicator I used when rehoming Annie. She would keep going after Sophie, ripping out feathers and pecking her now-bare neck, drawing blood. Up til that point, I figured I'd let them sort it out. But it just escalated, so Annie has a new home now.