Culling friendly hens for bullying and no longer producing eggs

[HenHangout]

I have a speckled hen and a rhode island red hen that are the friendliest towards me, they run up to me to say "hello", but they are terrible with my other hens. Besides them I have a brahma hen I bought, a silkie pair I bought, and all of my other hens are either pure silkie or mixes that I did not incubate, but let my 'mother silkie' brood over and raise. The brahma even helped raise one batch too after they hatched. They are not as people friendly.

Traits the bullies have:

• If I bring out scraps they get first picks and drive the others away
• They peck at other hens near the feed source
• I've watched my camera at night and they will peck at the smaller hens while they try to sleep, demanding a foot of space around them forcing other hens to the far corners or the nesting boxes
• I have a remote dispenser system for cracked corn, they will get first dibs while the other hens barely get anything
• Just pecking at a hen for being in close proximity

On top of these behaviors I haven't seen an egg from the speckled hen in over a year, and from the rhode island red its probably been 8 months. And yet, they demand to get either first dibs on the food or all of the food.

The only reason why I kept them around was because they were incredibly friendly with me, but seeing how they probably cause stress amongst the flock, I think I should cull them both.

This wouldn't be my first time. I had another friendly speckled hen who was a sweetheart and never bullied but somehow she got a bad leg, was always limping and would never leave the coop despite having space to free range, scratch at dirt, eat bugs... etc. I felt bad for her and I also factored in that her diet was 100% food I provided as opposed to foraging and she didn't produce eggs so I ate her. Do you recommend I do the same to these bully hens? I see my silkies peck at eachother too but its not as violent or dominant, maybe because they are much closer in size.

 

[sourland]

What you are describing is normal chicken behavior. The non laying may be a legitimate reason for culling; although, many allow a few pets to live out their lives in the flock.

 

[horror_trashcan]

If they're bringing lots of stress to your flock as well as not providing you with anything beside companionship and you have no issue in culling, I probably would. If you like them as pets then keep them around but if their purpose is eggs and they're not doing that... their other purpose is meat so.. Just remember that the pecking order will change and you may see that behavior in your other hens although I would hope they keep laying eggs.

 

[FrostRanger]

You can mitigate some of this by adding more feeders. RIRs do tend to be bossy birds, but what you're describing doesn't sound too bad. As for the egg thing, yeah, that'd depend on your goals for the flock. Even if they start up in spring their best egg laying days are behind them

 

[TOMTE]

It's normal for dominant hens to express that toward more subordinate flock members. The higher a chicken is in the pecking order, the more benefits they have within the flock. When a subordinate chicken challenges their place or oversteps, the dominant hens will correct them. If they're not causing serious stress or injury, I wouldn't cull for that alone.

If they're healthy and happy despite not laying eggs anymore, then it comes down to personal choice, like the others said. This is particularly good advice:

You can mitigate some of this by adding more feeders. RIRs do tend to be bossy birds, but what you're describing doesn't sound too bad. As for the egg thing, yeah, that'd depend on your goals for the flock. Even if they start up in spring their best egg laying days are behind them

More feeders, more opportunities for breaking line of sight (clutter!).

If you have pictures of your setup, that might help us point to any potential issues wrt bullying

 

[TOMTE]

Also... Culling dominant members of a flock will cause another shift in the pecking order which could cause more unrest and bullying.

 

[2ndTink]

You can cull them and there's nothing wrong with that choice. If you have the space, you could also create a pet flock, you could move those girls in a new coop and keep them separate from your other flock. This would allow you to keep them as pets but not have them bullying the other hens.

I have some hens that will live out their lives here, and I have some that will be processed at some point.

 

[K0k0shka]

Silkies and RIRs don't mix well. That's a common explosive combination, as RIRs tend to be very dominant to other chickens (while very friendly to people), and silkies are easy victims because they are smaller, more timid, and look different. So it's not that these two hens are bullies, really, it's that you have the wrong mix of breeds and that's a normal consequence of that. If you have the space, try splitting the flock into silkies and non-silkies (or timid and confident individuals).

Whether to cull, depends on what the purpose of your chickens is, and what your priorities are, and that's different for everyone. For me, priority #1 is friendliness with people, so I would choose that over anything else (including laying). But that's because my chickens are "pets with benefits".

 

[dawg53]

Put Pinless Peepers on the RIR and speckled hen, they work.

 

[Seaslug]

How long ago did you kill the other Speckle? Are these Sussex? I will say that my Sussex went off laying when one of them was killed by the neighbor's dog. It was very traumatic. I am hopeful that they all will return to lay this spring. Perhaps give them time to return to lay after the molt.