What do you do with quarreling hens?

[azygous]

Addressing the bullying issue by removing the bully(s) for a period of time seems to be the prevalent protocol. I'm hoping this will work in my case. The principle behind this is that by taking the aggressors out of the flock where they rank high in the pecking order, they'll return later to find they've lost a few points. But this generally means more fighting when they return. However, if all goes well, the fighting will be minor and short-lived.

So, my bully Francie is spending today in the rooster pen, and I may keep her out of the main flock over the next few days, too. It should serve to give her time to forget why she's so intent on fighting Joycie, and when she returns, she'll also have the diversion of having to integrate herself back into the flock.

So, that's the plan. We'll see what happens in a few days when I return her to the girls' pen.

Nova, I think your plan is a good one. It's certainly what I would try.

 

[kdwag]

Maybe it's the weather, or the comet that is coming so close to the earth or who knows what but I am in the same boat. I have a little bantam hen who has been spoiling for a fight for a couple of days now. She even tries to pick on my huge SLW/Cochin girl who tops the scales at over 9 lbs. She went broody in November for a few days then molted and hasn't laid an egg since. I don't count on her eggs but am wondering if there is something wrong because all my others who molted have been laying for two months.

Maybe she isn't laying because she's stressed from the aggression. Maybe isolating her from everyone will help her relax and start laying again. Mine is still aggressive with the weaker hen but not has violently, yet that is. The pecking order did change after isolation, unfortunately, it put the weaker hen at the bottom where before, she was 2nd. My bottom two went to 2nd and 3rd but without the aggressive hen, they were 1st and 2nd.

 

[azygous]

Whenever you take a chicken out of the flock, it shakes up the pecking order. You have so many different personalities, you can never be sure how it'll affect flock dynamics. It's a risk, this meddling in chicken affairs, and not to be taken lightly.

Sometimes we just have to remove the bully, give her a timeout, if only to give us chicken wranglers a little breathing room.

I noticed today that in Francie's absence, one of the lowest in the pecking order has suddenly decided to taunt Flo in jail, the persistent feather-picker who is serving a life sentence. Linda is an 18 month-old SS and the two of them were pecking at each other through the fence with their neck feathers raised. I've never seen Linda do that before.

 

[azygous]

A terrible thought just occurred to me. What if keeping Flo in the chicken jail adjacent to the rest of the flock has set off these battling hens?

It's been just recently that Francie and the other EE Rachel have been sparing with Flo through the jail fence. Then this week Francie began to attack Joycie. Then just today, Linda the SS began to spar with Flo through the jail fence.

Is Flo being in jail but not permitted to mingle with the flock setting off this chain of aggressive behavior?

This is a sickening and terrible thing if it's true. What do I do now?

 

[kdwag]

I don't know, but I wondered the same thing. Isolating Clemi helped for a short time, but then she started attacking another bird in addition to the bird she was already attacking. She's currently in time out right now because she was so relentless first thing this morning that everone was hysterical. So i removed her. I really do not think this is the solution. I think my only solution is to get rid of the bully, either rehoming to a larger flock or culling her. I'm tired of dealing with her though and she's so nice with me which makes getting rid of her a sad decision.

 

[azygous]

I fear you're right that the ultimate "solution" is probably the best one. But like you, I'm so attached to Flo and Francie, it makes me sick just thinking about culling them.

I brought her inside and she's now in a wire dog crate on the kitchen table. She's used to lots of freedom, so it's cramping her style.

As for Francie, I brought her back to the main flock. The fighting doesn't seem to rev up until afternoon, so I'd like to minimize the time she has to be segregated. Segregation seems to be causing more problems than it solves.

So, with Flo out of there, and Francie just spending time-outs when needed, maybe I can get flock dynamics back to what passes for normal around here.

 

[kdwag]

How long will you leave her inside the wire crate and what the heck do we do when we aren't home....

 

[azygous]

One step at a time. I haven't got the brain power for a long term solution. Flo is going to be a house chicken, for awhile any way. When I'm outside working on projects, she will free-range and get to be a "normal" hen. More people than you think have house chickens and they sleep in crates like Flo's. I've lined the cage with newspapers, and I clean up the poop as she goes in order to control odors.

I will need to keep a medical appointment 100 miles from home on Monday, but Flo should be fine in her cage. Or I may leave her enclosed in one of the lesser-used coops for the day.

The ideal solution, as I've said, would be to cull her. But she is so smart, so tame, and so lovable, I could never bring myself to do that.

 

[azygous]

Flo has now been moved to the garage, still in her wire cage. It was too warm in the house. She was panting and breathing hard. I let her outside to free-range until I got things set up. Then it began to snow. So Flo is back inside, but in a cooler place.

So far, it doesn't appear that Francie and Joycie have had any disagreements. We're heading into the afternoon, now, though, and that should give an indication if this new arrangement is improving flock dynamics.

 

[azygous]

It's now close to the end of the day, and there hasn't been any fights that I could detect. Of course, I haven't been sitting out there all this time watching them, but there are no fresh wounds on Joycie's comb and no feathers laying about. And Francie isn't stalking Joycie, growling deep in her throat.

So perhaps my theory that Flo in jail has been a disrupting presence. We'll test this theory more over the next few days.

But if you take into account that Joycie and Flo were brooder mates, therefore Francie might be assigning Joycie as a proxy for Flo, and since she and Flo have been sparing for a couple weeks now through the jail fence, Francie has been fighting Joycie because she can't get to Flo, it does make some sense.