- Mar 17, 2016
- 34
- 22
- 99
We have a 7 month old Silkie rooster who, for the most part, gets along with all our 6 hens and pullets. He was raised by us in a coop alongside our main coop and has always had interaction with the older hens, and they were all integrated into one coop a few months ago.
A couple weeks ago, our largest buff Orpington hen (Sally) saw him peck at my shoe, and she immediately came over and started fighting him. Sally has always been our gentlest and sweetest hen, we always say that she’s kind of the Mom of the whole flock. She’s the second oldest hen but we suspect she may be the Alpha, although she’s never shown any aggression toward any of our other chickens. She’s the only hen who never pecked at any of the baby chicks we’ve raised, even though she didn’t hatch them herself. Anyway, after the rooster pecked me and she fought him, we thought “oh that’s so nice, she’s trying to protect me!”, but unfortunately the fights have just continued, even when there’s no provocation.
The rooster has actually gotten LESS aggressive with us recently, so I’m really surprised that Sally has continued to fight him. When we first combined our flock together and he figured out he was the only rooster (we got rid of 2 other silkie roosters that we raised), he was a lot more aggressive toward us. We’ve been firm with him and shown him that we’re the boss, and he’s calmed down toward us. He’s started mounting some of the other hens (particularly the silkie girls, I suspect because they’re smaller and easier for him to be dominant over), but I’ve never seen him try to mount or bite Sally. She’ll just randomly flip out and start fighting him. Any ideas why this would happen? Sally is quite a bit bigger than him, but I worry that one of them will end up hurting the other one. Are they just working out who’s in charge? Should I let them fight it out or do I need to step in and separate them?
A couple weeks ago, our largest buff Orpington hen (Sally) saw him peck at my shoe, and she immediately came over and started fighting him. Sally has always been our gentlest and sweetest hen, we always say that she’s kind of the Mom of the whole flock. She’s the second oldest hen but we suspect she may be the Alpha, although she’s never shown any aggression toward any of our other chickens. She’s the only hen who never pecked at any of the baby chicks we’ve raised, even though she didn’t hatch them herself. Anyway, after the rooster pecked me and she fought him, we thought “oh that’s so nice, she’s trying to protect me!”, but unfortunately the fights have just continued, even when there’s no provocation.
The rooster has actually gotten LESS aggressive with us recently, so I’m really surprised that Sally has continued to fight him. When we first combined our flock together and he figured out he was the only rooster (we got rid of 2 other silkie roosters that we raised), he was a lot more aggressive toward us. We’ve been firm with him and shown him that we’re the boss, and he’s calmed down toward us. He’s started mounting some of the other hens (particularly the silkie girls, I suspect because they’re smaller and easier for him to be dominant over), but I’ve never seen him try to mount or bite Sally. She’ll just randomly flip out and start fighting him. Any ideas why this would happen? Sally is quite a bit bigger than him, but I worry that one of them will end up hurting the other one. Are they just working out who’s in charge? Should I let them fight it out or do I need to step in and separate them?
