Bullying in a tiny flock of 2

[lililiyabbay]

Hi BYC !! Me and my sister have been a visitor for many years, but have never made an account. Please help us out!!

My family had three pet chickens in our backyard for almost four years. They grew up as sisters, and though there was a clear pecking order, their behaviors were nothing out of the ordinary. However, over a year ago, Basil (who was at the top of the pecking order) was poisoned and passed away. Until now, the other two (Beans and Dumpling) have been getting along fine. Dumpling is smaller than Beans, and she has always been picked on, but now that they lost their ringleader Basil, they learned to rely on each other a bit more. Recently though, Beans has become a lot crueler to Dumpling.

Over the summer, Beans got a case of flystrike. We live in Queens, NYC, so we had no access to vets that treated chickens. As we did for Basil, we treated Beans ourselves. I'm getting a bit off topic here, so you can skip this paragraph if you want. My parents are both physicians. For Basil, we hand-fed her through a syringe with antibiotics and vitamins twice a day for over a month. She was probably doomed from the start, she couldn't function without us and started getting bullied by the other hens. It was like she got lobotomized. Before winter, she was killed by a racoon. Just typing this makes me tear up lol. For Beans, we pulled through and nursed her back to being healthy. It was definitely scary, but after a lot of brutal work, we did it. Even when Beans was recovering, Dumpling never actually bullied her. Sometimes she would peck at Beans' flesh, but stopped once we applied blue coat. Overall, I thought they would be okay.

The reason why we kept the two hens was because of how attached we are to them. Not only that, but they probably won't live that much longer anyway, so giving them away wouldn't really be beneficial to anyone (I think). But now, Beans has been extra mean to Dumpling. When given treats, she'd peck Dumpling very hard, even when she backs off. Beans won't even allow Dumpling into the coop. This behavior hasn't been going on for long yet, but I don't like seeing Dumpling being bullied

So now, what should we do? How can we make Beans(yellow buff brawna) less cruel to Dumpling(brown, forgot her breed)?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

As long as you aren't seeing blood or feather loss it sounds like normal behavior. We are under increasing daylight which is making hormones surge, so some amount of increased aggression can be seen this time of year.

In larger flocks aggression is more spread out. In a smaller flock, especially only two there's only top and bottom bird. If it gets to be too much you can try separating them by a fence, or even trying pinless peepers for the brahma.

 

[Gezellige_Poes]

Hi BYC !! Me and my sister have been a visitor for many years, but have never made an account. Please help us out!!

My family had three pet chickens in our backyard for almost four years. They grew up as sisters, and though there was a clear pecking order, their behaviors were nothing out of the ordinary. However, over a year ago, Basil (who was at the top of the pecking order) was poisoned and passed away. Until now, the other two (Beans and Dumpling) have been getting along fine. Dumpling is smaller than Beans, and she has always been picked on, but now that they lost their ringleader Basil, they learned to rely on each other a bit more. Recently though, Beans has become a lot crueler to Dumpling.

Over the summer, Beans got a case of flystrike. We live in Queens, NYC, so we had no access to vets that treated chickens. As we did for Basil, we treated Beans ourselves. I'm getting a bit off topic here, so you can skip this paragraph if you want. My parents are both physicians. For Basil, we hand-fed her through a syringe with antibiotics and vitamins twice a day for over a month. She was probably doomed from the start, she couldn't function without us and started getting bullied by the other hens. It was like she got lobotomized. Before winter, she was killed by a racoon. Just typing this makes me tear up lol. For Beans, we pulled through and nursed her back to being healthy. It was definitely scary, but after a lot of brutal work, we did it. Even when Beans was recovering, Dumpling never actually bullied her. Sometimes she would peck at Beans' flesh, but stopped once we applied blue coat. Overall, I thought they would be okay.

The reason why we kept the two hens was because of how attached we are to them. Not only that, but they probably won't live that much longer anyway, so giving them away wouldn't really be beneficial to anyone (I think). But now, Beans has been extra mean to Dumpling. When given treats, she'd peck Dumpling very hard, even when she backs off. Beans won't even allow Dumpling into the coop. This behavior hasn't been going on for long yet, but I don't like seeing Dumpling being bullied

So now, what should we do? How can we make Beans(yellow buff brawna) less cruel to Dumpling(brown, forgot her breed)?

You could try pinless peepers on the offender. I have had great success with this. In multiple situations, the offenders only had to wear them a short while and issues were resolved. Good luck!