That's really interesting so pleased I found this thread! I've only been keeping chickens for a year and have never noticed any squabbling at all!! I had a really peaceful flock of 4 British orpingtons such lovely birds. 2 went broody so I let them hatch out a few eggs last week so we've now got 4 new chicks. My friend gave me a beautiful young Roo who's so sweet and very good natured. Anyway the long and the short is one of my hens has become very aggressive! Pecking my toddler, pecking and breaking the eggs the broodies were on ( I later secure gated the broodies to stop this) but now she's terrorising the Roo! She rarely lets him roost in the coup or eat (they're totally free range so they have plenty of space) but this morning his beak was bleeding and there was blood trickling down his legs where she'd pecked him so hardAny animals that cannot secure breeding space, resources, and a mate, will not pass on its genes. But if a species is genetically healthy many animals will make it to breeding age and have the ability to compete for resources; at this point differentiating behaviors sort out with the least waste of energy and life possible which animals get prime breeding opportunities. Lesser animals who failed to achieve dominance will still breed, being the middling best, not the worst and not the best, but this failure to secure top spot, whether caused by genetics or diet or whatever, will soon become genetic; they may have started off with identical genetic strength to the ones that achieved dominance, but having failed to secure the best resources, their offspring are now vastly more likely to fail to achieve prime breeding success. So even if it wasn't their genetics that caused them to come second best, if they don't manage to achieve dominant status they will get the lesser feed, worse nesting spots, lesser mates, lesser opportunities for offspring, etc, and quickly this can translate into weaker genetics, since behavior, environment, nutrition etc all turn genes off or on. This is when harsher methods of attempting to achieve dominance start to show with some --- psychopathy or excessive, almost insane brutality being one method by which a sub par male or female takes a dominant position it could not earn otherwise. Other lesser animals will develop greater intelligence and cunning, which in a few generations can restore them to the top of the genetic competition and thus net them the resources they need to regain genetic strength. Environmental influences activate and deactivate some behaviors. An overabundance of great nutrition can becalm even the most aggressive species. A lack of nutrition, or low levels of it present in the environment, can cause once peaceful animals to become savage, and kickstarts the 'depopulation' instinct. This can also occur in an animal in a rich environment, where the lack of nutrition is only within the animal, i.e. an inability to synthesize something crucial, or a weakened digestive system. Or a domestic animal fed an overprocessed diet, as another example. In the wild, a flock/family group is often only comprised of one male and one female, sometimes more. They need a set area to survive, and a larger area than that to bring offspring to adulthood. Since the impetus behind any animal's life is to pass on its genes, the drive to procreate produces in most species some sort of behavior of environmental control, whether they're removing the unfit from their social group or protecting their territory from intruders who would consume the sources of nutrition they require to survive and succeed at reproducing. A rooster controls his territory from being invaded by other roosters, and a hen controls her territory from being invaded by other hens. She may tolerate a sister or other hen with which she gets along. She may not. A lot depends on personality there. The better the hen in terms of intelligence, genetic strength, and health, the less likely she is to tolerate another. She will want the very best possible chances for her offspring, and having another hen taking up resources for her own babies does not wash when there is not an overabundance. There's a certain 'arrogance' that comes with being genetically superior, among animals. Unlike us they are very aware of one another's genetic strengths and weaknesses, and therefore fitness to breed. A sub par animal can become dominant through excess aggression, though. With males of many species there is a positive correlation between excessive aggression and low fertility. This has been proven with a few livestock species as well as wild ones, and I have always found it to hold true in my animals of various species. Abnormal aggression and harem keeping are the breeding tactics of the sub par male, and they reward him with offspring from only sub par females. Never the twain shall meet, it seems, with the best, middling, and worst genetic stock. There are many factors that keep them separate within the species, including vastly different breeding behavior; among many ruminants as well as felines and birds, the very best males often don't bother to hold territories or fight over a group of females as all the middling males do; rather, the best males continue life as normal and the best females seek them out, even if they were associating with a group thought to belong to some other male. Females will resort to very sneaky behavior to breed with the male of their choice, even while seeming to be the mate of another male. Many females will mate when not fertile with a sub par male, to appease him, but will seek out a better male when fertile. I've seen this behavior in various species. Many males and females who are conscious of their worth genetically will refuse to mate with a lower grade individual. Among red deer and many other animals a dominant female produces dominant sons, but a sub par female never produces dominant sons. There is some steep competition for the best females but the best females will never mate with sub par males... Unless some disaster or human intervention ensures it. The area of territory, and how rich it is in feed, determines to a large extent how much territory they need to hold to guarantee reproductive success, and it also determines how tolerant any female will be of another female. If there's not much area due to neighboring territories, and not much feed for whatever reason, then both genders will be extra fierce and intolerant and a single female will remain with the male, having driven off all others. If there is enough feed for all you can end up with many antisocial species coming to live in huge, peaceful groups, and sub-par animals are far more likely to breed since they no longer need to compete for resources with the better stock. This is a sort of genetic leveling ground, where genetic lines that had fallen behind the dominant ones can regain the ability to compete due to the environmental excess of resources. Contrary to popular belief a male is not naturally dominant over females. That's an aberrant mentality we are responsible for breeding into them. The hen holds her own social status which is entirely independent from the male, and she only fights other females for her spot... It is, after all, the 'top hen spot'. The male also holds his own social status irrespective of the females, and only fights other males to retain 'top rooster spot'. The roles are complimentary, not competitive. There is no natural dominance of male over female; there is no natural fight between them. Neither is there any natural abuse of either gender by the other. A roosterless flock wherein the hens retain instinctual understanding of natural chicken society will embrace a newly introduced male, or several, without any fighting. Because he does not take the dominant hen's position there is no challenge nor fight to sort out where he is in the pecking order. This is also why a hen and rooster meeting each other for the first time do not fight to sort out the pecking order between them --- their gender-determined social statuses are complementary, not conflicting. When you have a male and female meet with either one or both lacking proper instinct about the other gender's social place or their own, then you have a fight. In most cases the rooster will accede the fight as his instinct kicks in and he realizes he should not be fighting a female. A male who harms a female severely lessens his chances of reproducing, and thus such aberrant males tend to ensure they fail to pass on their genes. Each gender has their own predetermined role, for which they have fought all the others of their own gender who could challenge them, and neither of them attempts to take the other gender's role and prerogatives from their mate. If they're mentally healthy, that is. Many chickens these days have warped and misdirected instincts due to their ancestors being raised for countless generations in artificial environments, in human-enforced social orders, and a psychopathic, neurotic or socially incompetent chicken would still be bred if it showed a desirable trait like extra production of flesh or eggs, so in thus usurping natural selection, we have developed and preserved many deranged mentalities among modern domestic poultry which bear no resemblance to natural wild ones. In the wild a male does not harm or drive away hens, or interfere with their fights, or kill babies. These are all unnatural, unhealthy cull-worthy domestic-only traits. Now, instead of having males who only control other males, we have males who also take the top hen's position, and abuse females. It is not natural for any animal to interfere with subordinate's social struggles. This does not resolve the problem nor sort out the pecking order between the two. In my experience, a dominant creature attacking two fighting subordinates causes the root of contention to worsen between them until it becomes likely that instead of sorting out the issue without bloodshed, they will in future maim or kill one another. If you watch wild animals, hierarchy disputes between subordinates are left to be sorted out by them with the dominant animals ignoring the fight. It is utterly unnatural for a male to harm a female, but it's considered normal by many. Normal is not the same thing as natural or healthy. Case in point: cancer is normal; carcinogens are normal; in a natural environment they are so scarce as to be a rare cause of problems, though in this increasingly polluted world they are now normal in 'pristine' areas too. In artificial environments, they are a constant and increased hazard. People often confuse the establishment and maintenance of the pecking order with outright bullying and abuse. These latter behaviors are unnatural and we bred them into poultry via bad breeding selection and intensive environments. It is natural for animals to sort out the hierarchy as peacefully, non-harmfully, quickly, and quietly as possible. Anything else exposes both participants to a heightened risk of injury, death, falling victim to predation, etc. For the same reason it is, for most species, unnatural for a creature to spend its valuable resources of time and energy trying to harm or kill an already injured or ill family member, or other member of its social group. It is entirely natural to drive them away, but to try to destroy them predisposes them to catching its disease, or risking becoming injured, or falling to a predator while distracted, etc. The risks outweigh the vague potential benefits. For the greater majority of the time the damaged animals are left to die, and indeed seek to separate themselves to die, whether attacked or not. It is rare that any species kills its weak or damaged members, despite what we were taught at school and see in many misinformation-laden documentaries. I've studied animals for decades now and what research teaches us compared to what pop-pseudoscience teaches us are two vastly different things. A lot of misinformation is still passed around, some of it serving an old outdated worldview whose proponents were willing to misrepresent facts to preserve their societies' norms (i.e.the many old 'facts' concerning the animal world which were skewed to cast the prevailing social arrangement of human society over animal society too; many of these old non-truths are still taught and believed despite much proof to the opposite. These include patriarchal interpretations of social structure, with researchers assuming rather than ascertaining at best and sometimes outright lying at worst; they imagined males were dominant in all species, as per their worldview, and taught it as fact despite much evidence that male and female roles are not antagonistic, and flocks/herds are always headed/led/dominated/disciplined by females, since males come and go but females remain). A male competes with males and a female with females. For obvious biological reasons males and females do not compete unless deranged. He has no need to compete with his mate for somewhere to lay his eggs, as an example.If a chicken has determined that it is dominant over another, there will only be a challenge if the subordinate chicken makes one. Otherwise, having settled their places in the hierarchy, the dominant chicken will leave the subordinate alone, and it in turn will avoid the dominant chicken and show appeasing body language and deference whenever they meet, and there will be no daily squabbling. There may be no squabbling or fighting for their entire lives if the subordinate never challenges the dominant. Between socially healthy chickens, peace will prevail. The same is true of basically every livestock species. Some families are more aggressive than others, but it is never the fault of the gender, nor the breed, nor the species. It is the fault of the breeder for breeding on with intolerant or outright violent animals. There are various body language modes/gestures a chicken will adopt to show its non-confrontational status to a dominant chicken. Different behaviors exist between males and females but the end result is the same. The dominant one is shown respect and has no need to reinforce its dominance. A good chook will be satisfied with that; a bad chook will continue to attack when not challenged. In a socially healthy environment, a hen never shows subordinate behavior to a rooster, because she is not subordinate to him. When trying to woo a new mate, a rooster will adopt very unoffensive body language; not subordinate but very non-offensive and clearly peaceful. But it is not natural for either gender to show submissive body language to one another. People often confuse a female's invitation to mate with submission, but this is merely another outdated worldview lens that persists. There is no need for the dominant one to regularly harm or abuse the subordinate. A little scuffle is normal but constant abuse of the subordinate is not. The real challenge for many chicken owners is to separate natural and health instincts from unnatural and unhealthy. Some people think anything they do is 'natural', unfortunately. Some domestic instincts are bad, others good/productive, like chickens peacefully sorting out the pecking order and coexisting in peace. Some wild instincts are good, others 'bad'/counterproductive, like fear of humans and the unhelpful desire to have a minimum of birds per a set amount of acres. It is not healthy nor natural for birds to be vicious with one another under any circumstance other than intensive caging of a large flock, but even then, domestic chickens have endured that and been bred and selected for coping without violence under such circumstances for uncounted generations, so bully birds represent another extreme that requires culling rather than breeding on. If you want a peaceful flock, the solution is not to remove the bullied, but to remove the bullies. For some reason people always seem to remove the bullied and keep the bullies! We have been taught that if it's bullied, it was for good cause; surely it's weak or unfit to breed. Often though the bully is the one that's unfit to breed, and is mentally aberrant which shows in it being abnormally vicious, and thus it gains a dominant place for being the equivalent of a psychopath. This will often breed true if allowed. And it is. Aaaaaanyway, long story, hope something in there is of use. Best wishes.
