Should I say goodbye to a mean hen?

[Mrs. K]

Always solve for the happiness of the flock...but try it first. Pull her out of the flock, and watch the flock for a couple of days, one of two things will happen, the flock will calm down. Now this can happen either because you have a better number of birds in your coop, or because you get rid of an aggressive hen.

If you want to know, put the aggressive hen back in, and pull another bird. If the flock remains calm and at peace, that is a better number for your set up and your flock.

Sometimes though, a weird thing will happen, after removing the bully, another hen will bully the victim. Then try pulling the victim.

It doesn't happen very often, and sometimes it happens are various levels, but sometimes there is a bird that just does not fit in the flock. Culling is a good answer.

If you don't want to cull, making sure that there are hideouts, roosts, multiple feeders, mini walls where birds can get away from each other or out of sight will also help.
mrs K

 

[Folly's place]

All good advice; also, production reds tend to be bullies, often. It's not suprising that she's your difficult hen.
Mary

 

[avocadoeggs]

All good advice; also, production reds tend to be bullies, often. It's not suprising that she's your difficult hen.
Mary

Thank you! I am going to pull her tomorrow and keep her in my garden (and garage kennel at night) for now. Then I will watch the flock behavior and decide next steps from there. I agree that it must have to do with her breed, as she hasn’t always been top bird...I used to have a friendly Orpington that led the flock but was never mean about it.

 

[aart]

Well at 14 sq ft run space per bird we call that ample for city chickens.

City chickens need just as much space as country chickens.
Your run space is pretty good, it's the coop that is tight.
I live in the country but my birds are confined to coop and run,
things get ugly during winter storms if I keep too many birds.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thank you! I am going to pull her tomorrow and keep her in my garden (and garage kennel at night) for now. Then I will watch the flock behavior and decide next steps from there. I agree that it must have to do with her breed, as she hasn’t always been top bird...I used to have a friendly Orpington that led the flock but was never mean about it.

I think this is exactly the right approach, try something and base your next steps on your observations. In my opinion you should look at the flock as a whole with possibly changeable members. The flock is more important than any one individual.

Isolating that hen is a great approach. No one can give you any guarantees as to the behavior of living animal, it just doesn't work that way. Flock dynamics can be affected by removing one or adding one. I have changed behaviors by removing one for a while and putting it back, but that does not always work.

Space for them is not a matter of square feet per bird, it is way more complicated than that. You can follow the link in my signature to see some of what I consider to be important, there are a lot of variables. I try to not look at run space or coop space in isolation but consider them together as a space system and how it is managed. A huge run does them no good if they are locked in the coop when they are awake, whether because you have not opened the pop door or the weather won't let then out. The personality of the individual chickens involved and how they interact plays a big part. The size of your coop and run is normally a good size for six chickens but I've had some where chickens had over 50 square feet each in the run and it still didn't work when they were in the run. It's more complicated than just square feet per bird.

That hen mating another is not that unusual. That sometimes happens when there is not a dominant rooster in the flock. I've seen that when I had an immature cockerel in the flock with no dominant rooster. The dominant hen would not let the cockerel mate but she would mate hens in front of him just to show she is boss. That changed when he matured. Her mating does not mean she is mean or being a brute, just that she is dominant. The head grab is part of the mating act, it is the signal for the hen to raise her tail out of the way so the rooster can hit the target. Occasionally a feather might come out due to this but it should not be that bad.

All this does not mean things are fine. Sometimes a chicken, female as well as male, is a true brute and bully. Their behavior needs to be altered or they need to be removed for the good of the overall flock. You've seen the feather plucking, that is not a good sign.

I don't agree that if must be due to her breed. If you read enough posts on here you will find Buff Orps, Barred Rock, even Silkies that behave the same way or worse. There are breed tendencies but you don't have enough of them for averages to mean much. That's why in our small flocks I like to look at them as individuals and not by breed, try to be more objective. When I am dealing with these types of issues I tend to focus on the aggressor unless the victim is consistently a victim no matter what other chickens are around. Then I focus on the victim.

Good luck, I think you are using the right approach.

 

[lazy gardener]

You have 2 things going against you: spring hormone surge, and birds in confinement. When a top of pack bird tells an underling to get out of her space, what she is really saying is this: "Get out of MY space, or I'm gonna rip your face off." A chicken "owns" all of the space within an 8' radius. In a small flock with a small coop/run set up, it's impossible for the underling to move that far away. So, head bird proceeds to dish out the promised discipline.

Is your coop/run integrated into a single predator proof unit, that has a covered roof over the run, so they can access it 24/7? That should help. Otherwise, I'm inclined to say that your 24 s.f. coop is NOT big enough.

If your run is not equipped with multi height/out of sight but no dead end spaces, that could also help, as could putting in multi feed/water stations.

 

[avocadoeggs]

You have 2 things going against you: spring hormone surge, and birds in confinement. When a top of pack bird tells an underling to get out of her space, what she is really saying is this: "Get out of MY space, or I'm gonna rip your face off." A chicken "owns" all of the space within an 8' radius. In a small flock with a small coop/run set up, it's impossible for the underling to move that far away. So, head bird proceeds to dish out the promised discipline.

Is your coop/run integrated into a single predator proof unit, that has a covered roof over the run, so they can access it 24/7? That should help. Otherwise, I'm inclined to say that your 24 s.f. coop is NOT big enough.

If your run is not equipped with multi height/out of sight but no dead end spaces, that could also help, as could putting in multi feed/water stations.

Yes, the “L” shaped run is totally predator proof and covered completely with a roost. We used to open/close the coop door at night but stopped doing that last year since we feel confident nothing can get in the run or coop. I agree that the coop is at minimal space (I know some suggest only 2-3 sq ft per bird but I think that’s too small). However, we are already over the size limit guidelines put in place by the city so I didn’t want to push it much more. If I really determine coop/run size is the issue, I would decrease my flock size permanently.

I pulled the mean girl this morning and she is happily tilling my garden up in our outside exercise pen. The other five are all resting in and around the dust bath. Peace for the time being!

Thanks for all of the advice, as I think I have a good plan to follow and feel good about what to do as I read their behavior.