Sharicemarie
In the Brooder
- Jun 28, 2024
- 2
- 21
- 21
I am pretty new to chickens still and first acquired 14 baby chicks a few months back. I had no problems out of them other than having too many roosters and a couple of chickens that were kinda buttheads that I decided to rehome to a friend of mine that is able to have her chickens free range. My home is very close to a kinda busy road so I don't allow mine out and about very often as I am afraid they will wonder into the road. I got 2 new chickens about a month or so in and had no problems introducing them. Recently someone gave me 7 chickens and all chaos started. I have rehomed 3 of the new chickens to the same friend already because of problems and not having enough hens for the amount of roosters I have. I also separated my "littles" from my "bigs." The bigs are doing fine. But the littles.... I had 2 roosters in the little group at first but one of the roosters was really mean to everyone and seems to be very happy back in with the bigs again so he obviously is meant to be there. So now I only have one rooster in the littles area which I've read can cause problems but I only have 6 little hens so don't have enough for 2 roosters anyways. So out of my 6 hens I have 2 that have been around since the beginning, 2 silkies, and 2 other small hens that were kept together with the previous owner. Since moving my little rooster and my 2 littles in with the 4 new hens my rooster has become a total jerk. He chases around the silkies that I don't believe are ready to mate yet while they yell out in fear until he catches them and plucks out feathers and just generally terrorizes them. The other 2 new hens that are the only ones that are laying yet have ganged up with him to terrorize. The 2 I have had since the beginning get picked on the most. The roosters does not even try to mate with them but the 2 hens that ganged up with him, and one of the silkies, are being absolutely cruel to my favorite hen. Today the mean silkie mounted my hen after this morning I found that she has a gash on her beak. I removed the rooster temporarily after the ruckus he caused yesterday to try and get some peace but the one hen that ganged up with him was still bullying the silkie that then turned around and bullied my favorite hen. I removed the mean hen that was doing the most bullying and the silkie that mounted my hen because of all of the chaos and for fear of my hen and now am at a total loss on what to do. I understand that chickens have to establish a pecking order but I cannot get myself to allow any of them to be tortured or injured by others. I am also curious as to if the hen mounting the other is really a hen and if it is possible that the other one that is bullying and plucking feathers may be a hen. If anyone can help me get some peace for these poor birds I would be so grateful because I do not have the time to babysit all day and can't stand that they may be injuring each other. How do I get my rooster to quit being so mean and trying to force hens that may be too young to mate, to do so? How do I keep my favorite hen from being mounted and the mean hens from trying to keep them from eating and drinking? Will peace ever come back to my poor littles?
