Would you keep a mean chicken?

[BDutch]

I put out several handfuls of scratch/black fly larvae each morning as a treat and she runs to a pile,

I have noticed that giving mealworms (super treat) is giving stress. Just because they are all very eager to eat as much as possible. They don’t need it if you provide healthy feed.

I give them a few mealworms during moult and winter, a few times a week. I scatter them to give them all an equal chance or give them by hand on turn.

 

[Possum-Pie]

It's not a stressful time generally, the girls spread out, peck at the dried larvae/mealworms first, then eat the cracked corn. It's a small treat that reinforces that they come running when called. There are reasons that coming when called is important (preditor, one escaped from the run, etc.) As I mentioned, the trouble comes when the Bard Rock bullies her way into everyone's meal. This also happens if the rooster calls out that he has found something good to eat out in the run. The girls trot over to see what he found and the Bard Rock pushes her way to the front. The others tolerate this behavior and there is no fighting...

Culling a chicken who is causing injury or extreme distress is the best thing, but anyone who has had chickens for any length of time will tell you there is ALWAYS a pecking order, always those who get their way, get the highest perch, are the first outside when the coop door opens. Any idea that every hen will cooperate and play nice is unreasonable. My dilemma is that my Bard Rock is right on the border of being too much of a problem, but I can't decide if she is causing stress, or if I'm overreacting to a natural behavior.

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

A hen who is repeatedly harassing her flockmates creates stress in the flock and makes them scared to eat and drink a normal amount, which in turn affects their health. It is better to cull an overly-dominant hen than to have to treat multiple sick and injured chickens. You are a human, not a chicken, and therefore you have no way to stop a hen from bullying except to separate her or cull her. Trying to interfere with the pecking order in any other way will lead to a fail.

 

[PrettyChicky25]

She is constantly pecking the other chickens, to the point of drawing blood.
I had chose Bearded Silkies as my main breed. All of them are super sweet including my Rooster. I decided that I should get a couple of bigger chickens for larger eggs and had chosen Black Copper Marans after lots of research. Neither of my bigger girls, which my neighbor gave me are BCMs, which they were supposed to be. One is a Cream Legbar, she can be quite a bully but she's not very big. The other one ended up being a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte. She's like 2 times the size of the Cream Legbar and 3 times the size of the Silkies. She is the one this post is about. Beautiful bird but mean!! My poor Rooster is missing his entire beard from her pulling out his feathers. And the Cream Legbar, who I thought was losing her feathers on her back from mating is actually losing her feathers from the Blue Laced Red Wyandotte pecking her hard, then pulling out her feathers.

Maybe try to figure out why she is so mean. Maybe someone was mean to her in the past. I once had a parrot who was always annoyed but then one day I looked at her life. I realized I always went to her last out of all my birds, during feeding, pets, etc. When I changed my behavior, her behavior changed. This bird now literally asks if I'm okay if something is wrong. It's karma I think for me trying to help her.

 

[Frozen]

I had a couple of chickens (larger) that picked incessantly at a smaller older one. At around that time I was learning about homeopathics, so I decided to put some Bach Remedy "Rescue Remedy" in the water container.

The next day the older Americauna hen laid an egg and pretty much laid 5-6 a week till the colder season started when she would not lay anyways. Prior to that she laid maybe one a month if that. Additionally she stopped letting it bother her when they did peck at her and the other girls stopped getting their jollies picking on her. It was an amazing transformation. Very inspiring.

With animals you need less I am assuming and I put way more in their drinking water than necessary because homeopathic remedies do not require a lot of volume, it is more important the number of times they/we take it. So my suggestion would be a max of a full strength drop or two in say a gallon of water would be plenty.

What RR does is hard to really say but it seems to just dissolve old stresses and eventually it will heal that part or trauma of whatever living thing has stored. My usual explanation would take too long to write out.

BTW RR is available in any health food store and is cheap.

 

[Frozen]

For the record there is around 220 drops in the bottle of RR in the regular bottle I had.

 

[FunClucks]

My ISA Brown Head Hen was a Head Bully. I regret losing her awesomely large eggs, but I don't regret rehoming her to someone who kept a free-ranging flock (mine was confined due to predators, and this just didn't work for her). She picked on all my colored eggers (who were smaller) and the other ISAs, and there is so much more peace in the flock now. Everyone else's eggs increased in size after she left, because they got more to eat and weren't as stressed I expect. Definitely cull (rehome or eat) that trouble maker.

 

[BDutch]

A hen who is repeatedly harassing her flockmates creates stress in the flock and makes them scared to eat and drink a normal amount, which in turn affects their health. It is better to cull an overly-dominant hen than to have to treat multiple sick and injured chickens. You are a human, not a chicken, and therefore you have no way to stop a hen from bullying except to separate her or cull her. Trying to interfere with the pecking order in any other way will lead to a fail.

In general it it no problem to rehome a healthy hen. Not even if she is a bossy type. Lots of people have flocks where such a hen would fit in. And maybe she is less bossy in another flock. No reason to kill her IMHO.

 

[EliseH]

Maybe try to figure out why she is so mean. Maybe someone was mean to her in the past. I once had a parrot who was always annoyed but then one day I looked at her life. I realized I always went to her last out of all my birds, during feeding, pets, etc. When I changed my behavior, her behavior changed. This bird now literally asks if I'm okay if something is wrong. It's karma I think for me trying to help her.

Nobody was mean to her. Our neighbor gave her to us at 4 weeks old. She went right into the brooding box with my Silkies when they arrived. She was very motherly to them.
Once they were moved to coop, she wouldn't let us come anywhere near her. She would run. So we gave her her space.
Every morning she would great me at the run door for treats but ad soon as I opened the door, she'd move out of the way and if I got near her, she'd run.
Our Cream Legbar girl has always been a bully but nowhere near the way this Blue Laced Red Wyandotte has become. She would steal treats right out of the other chickens mouths. Then peck them. It's not like there wasn't enough for all of them.
Her nasty behavior corresponded with her starting to lay about a month and 1/2 ago and had gotten progressively worse.
She left on Christmas to live with chickens her own size. My flock is all calm now. Even my Cream Legbar is being less of a bully.

 

[FunClucks]

In general it it no problem to rehome a healthy hen. Not even if she is a bossy type. Lots of people have flocks where such a hen would fit in. And maybe she is less bossy in another flock. No reason to kill her IMHO.

If your flock has Merek's or Lymphoid Leucosis, or for some other reason you need to keep a closed flock, eating a troublesome hen is a perfectly valid choice. Also, some folks keep eggers for meat and eggs, so of course you can eat your livestock.

I generally get more money for a healthy laying hen than I pay for purchasing a processed chicken from the store. Also, that's 2-4 hours of work if I want to process a bird myself. And I have no flock illnesses, and a decent amount of folks near me willing to buy hens, so most of my problem hens get sold/rehomed instead of eaten. And if it's one of the named pet egger hens causing trouble, those get rehomed instead of eaten, or my kids would really be upset with me.