Something I didn’t know before I got chickens:
Yes, those cute fluffy backyard birds are not nice and “pecking order” is a real thing.
I started out with 10 white Leghorns and all was well. They roamed together and everyone got along. I added five hens that were a gift from friend to the mix and the white leghorns were anything but welcoming! They would peck at the little chicks, chase them, and keep them from the food. I was actively going into the coop and ensuring that the little chicks were able to eat and drink. The leghorns were still chicks themselves, so I didn’t see why everyone couldn’t be friends. Things only got worse.
A few weeks after getting the five chicks, I got gifted another hen. She was a solo rider at her old farm (all of her siblings had been killed) and the farmer was hoping she could have a better life at my coop. I was so hoping she could assimilate into the pecking order and befriend the five chicks who had just been bullied. Instead, I witnessed the victim chicks become the bullies! I couldn’t believe it. They were now the ones pecking at and chasing this poor sweet girl who had come to my homestead for a better life. Ugh.
I had to do the same things I did with the other five chickies: regularly go into the coop and ensure this solo chicken was getting food and water. If it wasn’t bad enough that all of her siblings got killed, she was now in a new place with no familiar faces and having to deal with more bullying. Would the five hens had bullied her if they had never been bullied? I’m not sure because I’m not a professional chicken psychologist, but I thought it was pretty mean.
Weeks later, the solo chicken has finally ventured from the coop and found her place among the flock. Although lonely, sometimes I see her free ranging with a leghorn or the other grey chicken that looks like her. She is still ran off by the two main bully chickens though.
Today, I picked fresh raspberries and gave them to my chickens for a treat. Typically, they eat in their pecking order too. The white leghorns will shoo off the five grey and black hens and they will shoo off the solo rider. I threw the raspberries all over hoping everyone could get a treat.