Chicken yard drama! Halp!

[GoatDragonFarms]

Alright folks, we need help.
The situation:
We have 13 birds, mixed flock. One of them is a year+ old laying silkie hen. We have two 3.5 month old Wyandotte cockerels. The two cockerels hatched and grew up together with 4 pullets and have no problem with each other. They have gotten, in the past two weeks, increasingly aggressive with the silkie who is easily the smallest bird we have. When they were younger they would get into occasional altercations and the silkie would peck them into submission but now the bigger of the two cockerels is easily twice her body weight. When the biggest of the cockerels bully's her, his little brother and his hatchling mates (the 4 pullets) all join in. The rest of the flock (all older hens, some laying) do not participate.
Solutions? One I read on another forum would be to remove the offender. The big cockerel maybe going on a "souls searching adventure" away from the flock soon as a way to experiment if his influence is causing the other young birds to gang up on the silkie. Anyone know if this is a realistic solution?
My concern: my wife and I hatched the two cockerels and while we'd rather not re home them, it's not off the table. The silkie is our best layer so she's not going anywhere but I don't want her to get hurt.

Any good ideas out there? Thank you guys in advance

--
Virginia and James
Goat Dragon Farms

 

[lazy gardener]

My recommendation is to get rid of all but one of your males. You only need one. Keeping more than one in a small flock rarely works out well for the females. For that matter, do you really need a roo at all? If not get rid of them now.

 

[Folly's place]

Silkies are often not able to do well/ survive in a mixed flock, especially with standard birds. Your cockerels are developing into adolescents, and are being jerks, at least to this little hen. You could try to remove the boys, and see if their hatchmates 'forget' about attacking the Silkie. Maybe it will work, maybe not.
You may want to set up a separate coop for your Silkie and friends, or make some arrangement that protects her.
Mary

 

[BYC910]

You could try to restructure the pecking order but it will be time consuming. Not to mention costly . First the aggressor should be caged next to the silkie wire separation only between the two . Out of sight of the rest of the flock . In doing so you create a flock of two. After they have shared a wire separator for a few days put them together if there is aggression separate them and wait a few more days .Then put them together . It's on going until they become flock mates . If it works the rooster will become the silkies protector . For it to have a chance of working they most be out of sight of the main flock . if possible out of sound as well. I have small cages 28ins by 36ins I use to integrate new birds to a flock . I put the cage with the chicken in it in the center of the coop so the other chickens can get all around it . If the first pairing is successful .Then one by one or two by two bring the rest of the flock to the rooster silkie pair . If you are reluctant to rehome either of the rosters build a rooster pen for it and save it as a back up rooster . But you can see that this method will take time . And it may not work . Good luck hope you work it out the way you want it to be .

 

[red horse ranch]

Your Silky needs to be protected! Get rid of the bully or you will regret it. I had a pullet suffocated last year while being bred by a big aggressive young rooster. He went to the freezer immediately. Small hens don't stand a chance against an aggressive rooster.

 

[aart]

I'd get the males out of there asap, if not permanently gone then at least separate.
Also, how big are your coop and run areas, in feet by feet?
Pics of coop and run would help too.

 

[Folly's place]

Silkies are fragile little birds, easily injured/ killed compared to standards. She is really in danger in this situation!
Mary

 

[song of joy]

It sounds like the cockerels are working their way up the pecking order, as their position (ultimately as mature roosters) is at the top. This means they will make the females submit to them via breeding or aggression. Fights can be most severe between cockerels and the highest-ranking females in the flock, unless the cockerels are charming enough to win over these females (via wing-dancing, tidbitting, etc.). Unfortunately, most young cockerels are not wise enough or patient enough to use these gentler techniques for winning over females. This scenario tends to be worse with multiple cockerels as they are competing for the same females.

If you keep both males, there will be lots of drama. If you keep one male there will still be some drama, and the silkie will end up being bred by a male that is 3 to 4 times her size.

 

[GoatDragonFarms]

Thank you for the feedback! We separated the two males from the rest of the flock this morning. Virginia has made a make shift 'bachelor pad' for the boys. Everyone can still see each other but the boys are not able to reach the hens now.
Our game plan is to exhaust every possible option we can find to keep the boys.
[rant] Yeah they're boys yeah they won't lay eggs and yeah they're difficult. We hatched them and have taken care of them since the beginning. We aren't a big operation, we are just a hobby farm trying to feed our family. If we had a problem hen we'd exhaust all options to keep her. We owe it to the boys to do the same for them. If every possible option doesn't work, then we'll re home then. That's at least our philosophy and how we want to run our tiny farm [/rant].
We are fairly new to chickens but have done a fair amount of research and found some solid looking resources to help socialize the cockerels. That may be a positive distraction rather than beat up the silkie. We'll keep them sequestered while we socialize them and allow them to get older and calm the *F* down. We'll let them share free ranging time for now.
I can't remember who amongst you said that they cockerels are trying to get to the top of the order and going after the top hen, but thank you. That's the silkie; even though she was smaller than the other hens, she's older and up until recently had no problem with asserting her dominance over the bigger, younger hens and the cockerels when they were smaller. Now not so much.
We'll keep posting about it and share if it does or does not work.

Thanks again for everyone's feedback! We appreciate it!

--
James
Goat Dragon Farms

 

[GoatDragonFarms]

¡Update folks!
We made the decision to separate our silkie from the rest of the flock. We figured that even if we are able to socialize the cockerels enough that they aren't constantly attacking her, which admittedly was a long shot, there was still the problem that one of you guys brought up which definitely opened Virginia and I's eyes: our Wyandotte cockerel is already twice her size and growing. Even if he calms down and just chooses to mate, he will more than likely hurt her unintentionally.
So we are separating her and have plans to add a separate chicken tractor for her. Because we don't want her to be lonely, we have ordered some silkie eggs for her to go broody on.
Once again, thank you very much for the feedback. We are still going to keep working with our cockerels and try to socialize them so they aren't a couple of jerks.