So every morning I drive over to Landlady’s place to check on the chickens, right? And every morning for the past three or four Ouch! Six! I’ve looked in on Agnes the Red, Psycho-Bitch from the Fortress of Attitude. And she is living on the shelf in the far corner, clearly not partying with her new roomies in any smallest way.
In our last exciting episode Agnes arrived at the Big Chicken House and got greeted to within an inch of her life. Now as far as I could tell since then she wasn’t being specially molested or anything. But she never left that shelf when I was around to see it. And that shelf is in the opposite corner from the food. I began to wonder if she was eating, or if I was just going to find her dead one morning.
So this morning I picked her up and carried her to the food pipes. And she showed a great interest in staying there. And two of the cocks dropped what they were doing, ran over and attacked her viciously, and chased her back to her shelf.
So that’s not working.
I gave her food and water, but am back to solutions that involve hatchets and pressure cookers.
ETA: In the Fortress of Attitude, the middle hen is feathering up nicely and the smallest one is still a nervous wreck. Indeed Middle Hen has taken to harassing her, though judging from Smallest Hen’s overreactions I probably would, too. So I think I’m going to try a rapprochement. I’m going to try feeding Agnes in the big chicken house for another week or so, to allow Middle Hen to fully grow her feathers. Then I’m going to eat Smallest Hen and bring Agnes back to the Fortress. Sound like a plan?
I haven’t figured that out yet either Joel. My chickens will let the quail, who are quite smaller than they are, come into their yard and eat and drink, but they will pick on one of their own. Psycho might be the right word…..
Consider the size of the brain for a moment. Not sure chickens have enough brains to rise to the level of psychotic, but aren’t they supposedly descended from raptors? Remember the velociraptors in Jurassic Park? Just be glad chickens aren’t that big anymore. LOL
OK, here’s the trick folks.
When you’re introducing an individual to a flock….it can’t be just an individual. I put at least three new birds into any flock. You need to break up the flock dynamics…if it’s only one individual they’ll be targeted, and likely die. As is being demonstrated. Birds…all of the….are rat bastards when it comes to dominance.
Then again, a nice chicken stew….ain’t nothing wrong with that!
If you need the tiny coop (maybe put it inside your coop w the tiny hen in it?) feel free!
You’re learning a lot about chickens-I hope you’re keeping notes.Maybe there’s another ‘how to’book in the future!
I now have a greater understanding of how the old expression “pecking order” came to be. LOL.
And I will amend my thinking that humans were the worst-meanest-elitist-game playing-etc etc in social interactions. That would be chickens, instead. Also, I don’t have the kind of patience you do, I’d be cooking 2 chickens already……
Near as I can tell, yes, chickens are psychos, or at least crazy.