Chick Pecks At Other Chick's Beak Constantly??? What to Do?

[nancypo]

I have noticed my barred Rock pullet chick seems to be pecking a lot at my one other pullet (buff orp.) chick's beak alot. Is this normal? I never saw this in the other 3 I hand raised last year. Or is this just aggression? Should I take her back or seperate them or??? Frustrating...

 

[nancypo]

Could this also be hunger, thinking the other chick has food in it's mouth? There's a nice, big feeder and planty of food, and it's pooping normally...

 

[Sorin]

I have 11, 8 week olds that did this quite often. They started by picking off food from the others beaks when they got messy. They don't do it as much now, but when I feed yogurt, they all run around pecking each others beaks

The problem chick may have done just that once and now is constantly checking for more food. That last part is a guess, but I dont believe this is aggression. I would just do your best to dissuade this and give it a little more time

 

[AKsmama]

Is the one doing the pecking hurting the one being pecked? Honestly, unless one was being injured, I would leave them alone. It could be a dominance/pecking order thing, and that is something you typically can't control and really shouldn't even try to unless someone is being injured. If you try to control pecking order too much (which changes every day, and sometimes hour to hour, especially when they are young), you will drive yourself crazy. If the pecking one is injuring others, I say remove that one for a few days then reintroduce.

 

[MommaOrp]

sometimes beaks can look interesting to chicks so they may peck a bit, ive seen it with mine and ive hatched a lot!

 

[nancypo]

Ok, thanks, sounds lie not a big deal. No injuries, just bugging the other one. I'm probably just sensitive, since I had to get rid of a 2 year hen I'd recently bought, who was really aggressive. Did some bloody damage to the comb and head, and terrorized my docile hen...

 

[MommaOrp]

tell me about it, my 1yr old welsummer roo is incredibly vicious, even with my 3 yr old DS!! he's penned up ready to leave i'm afraid, even though i love him dearly as he hatched in my hand

 

[nancypo]

It's best, just send em on, mine went to a mini-farm

 

[stormylady]

:Mine do it all the time I think its normal, does she have something on her beak? maybe a chip, something that looks like it shouldn't be there? If so just clean it off if nothing is there no harm done, My big girls do that all the time, like with grass and clover some times when they get a long stem of clover or grass they will actually kinda present it to another hen to help her get it out or perhaps their sharing. In either case I don't think there is anything to worry about, if the pecking was at an eye or butt or something like that yea I would say you would have to address the problem , But I don't think you have anything to worry about .