Top hen is suddenly skittish?

[Kittxnx]

Hey! New to BYC, not really sure how to work this but I’m figuring it out!
My top hen is suddenly super skittish and she’s running from the other chickens (they’re not doing anything to her).
She’s a little Serama, we have a Serama rooster and before she started acting like this she would even put him in his place. The rest of our chickens are normal sized (we have 2 Lavender Orpingtons, Gold Laced Wyandotte, Black Australorp, Naked Neck, Welsummer, and a Bluestar)

Like I said before, she’s the top hen in the flock alongside our little rooster. She’s been broody for a long time and all our methods weren’t working to break her, so I decided to bring her inside and give her a bath. Water was warm and I had the shower head in a very low and quiet setting so it wouldn’t startle her. Her comb did pale throughout this process, so I slowly blow-dried her (she has been shaking the entire time. Even when she wasn’t wet, not sure why this is) and TRIED to trim her nails. I did accidentally cut one just way too far and it started bleeding. I treated it then put her back in the coop. Surprise surprise she was still broody, but I let her have a chance to free-run with the other chickens to calm her down a bit because her comb was still super pale, and that’s when she was running from everybody that got close to her?

I had to go out of town for 5 days, I just got back and it looks like she’s been chilling on the roosting bars and is still running from everyone? Why is this?

Update: Just found out that she’s mostly afraid of our Golden Laced Wyandotte and our Serama Rooster. Our Gold Laced has a reputation for chasing and trying to peck our Rooster and now she’s doing the same with my Serama hen. Normally my Serama would fight back but she’s just running. Is she gonna be okay?

 

[Debbie292d]

When they're broody, they don't want anyone messing with those fake chicks following them around, so they run off. Their imaginary eggs and babies is all they are thinking about.

One way to break her is put her in a metal dog cage/kennel, large enough so she can stand up. Set that on bricks so there is air flow underneath of it. We put a 2x4 in there the long way so she can walk on that instead of wires. We secure a food dish and water to the inside so she doesn't knock them over. We have this in our coop so she's secure. Usually, 3-4 days, and done.

 

[Mrs. K]

I am wondering the age of your birds, is everyone full size? Some people can have a flock of bantam and full size chickens, but in other flocks it leads to bullying.

 

[Kittxnx]

Our seramas are around a year old, our other chickens are around 8 and a half months old. We got our seramas when they were 2-3 months old and had them when our bigger chickens were still chicks.

We got our seramas from the same person, they just grew up it different flocks. We kept them in the same cage near our chicks brooder, and our serama hen would ALWAYS be attacking our serama rooster. (Tofu is our hen, Tatertot is our rooster)
For the first month, Tofu would always seem to peck him whenever she got the chance, poor Tatertot was scared of her. (They grew used to each other eventually, but she was still prominently dominant).

We moved our seramas and chicks to our big coop when the seramas were slightly bigger than the chicks and they’ve grown up like that and none of the bigger ones picked at the seramas. Tofu was still very clearly at the top of the pecking order, she would peck at the other bigger chickens when they got in her way. She even stood up against our Brahma rooster (successfully so that he was also scared of her).
So I’m just finding her sudden skittish behavior odd…she lets others pick at her and she’s acting like she wasn’t one of the meanest meanies out there, reminder, this was all after I bathed her and accidentally cut the quick of one of her nails so I’m not sure if that’s a factoring role?

 

[Mrs. K]

No, the fact that you bathed her and cut her toenail to short would have no more influence than being in the rain or walking on rough ground.

The reason why you had to bath her is more indicative of something wrong. Being broody makes for a pale comb, but roosting means she must have broke.

Space could be the main culprit for the number of birds, what are your measurements? What seems like a lot of room when chicks are small, can become not enough room when full grown. It is pretty common for people to report flock problems as birds reach full size.

There is a tendency to think pecking order is static, but it is not. It is really constantly changing as birds come in and out of lay, as birds get older.

While broody, she ‘left’ the flock, and lost her place. If she had hatched chicks, defending them would help, but she didn’t. In the meantime the other birds came into there own.

If she is just skittish, I would do nothing in my set up, I have a lot of clutter, roosts, mini walls that block the sight and birds can get away. I also feed my 12 birds in 5 different spots, placed so a bird eating at one spot can’t see other birds eating at another spot. That works for me.

If she is being harassed and you want to keep all of them try pin less peepers on the mean birds. Or you can remove some birds so your flock fits better. A lot of people don’t want to do this, but it can be amazing how it gives peace to your flock.

Mrs K

 

[Mrs. K]

Oh and being raised together has almost no influence on adult behavior.