Why Do Chickens Attack Each Other and How to Stop It Donna Larson, July 11, 2024July 11, 2024 New backyard chicken-keepers are often shocked to learn that chickens aren’t always the best of friends. Aggressive behaviors within your flock can be caused by a number of stressors. Let’s look at the top ten reasons to answer the question why do chickens attack each other and how can we stop it. Why Do Chickens Attack Each Other? Chickens picking on chickens is a natural occurrence, and it happens in every flock of chickens. Stress is the main cause of attacks, but what could be stressing your feathered friends? Here are the top ten reasons that your chickens might turn on their own flock. Not Enough Living Space Heat Stress Too Much Light Not Enough Feed or Water Nutritional Deficiencies Mixing of Flock Mates Changes Within the Chicken Coop Not Enough Nesting Boxes Injured Chicken in the Flock Introducing New Chickens to the Flock Not Enough Living Space Chickens need a minimum of four square feet per bird if they’re locked up in a chicken coop around the clock. That’s a simple 2′ X 2′ space per bird at minimum. Limiting space for your chickens to a coop means they’re competing for their own space. An aggressive chicken will quickly throw her weight around to let the others know that she’s the boss hen, claiming the space. That leaves the other members of the flock even less space for which they must compete. You may find them huddled together in the corner, eventually feather pecking at one another. Do not overpopulate the coop that you have given to your chickens. Creating a run from your chicken coop will give your birds more space to explore and burn some energy. Heat Stress The heat can be brutal at times, and it certainly stresses our chickens as much as it stresses us. Chickens don’t sweat to cool down, so they pant to help dissipate heat. Make sure that their coop is a well-ventilated space, and offer your chickens a fan to cool off. Misters and pans of water to stand in help too. Too Much Light Chickens need 14 hours of daylight in order to efficiently convert feed to eggs in a healthy manner. Often times, the cool-season days with reduced natural light leave backyard chicken coops with artificial lights left on overnight. This stresses birds’ photosensitive cells in their brains. Remember, stress can be the cause of the aggressive behavior in your birds. Additionally, extra bright lights, even within the 14 hour time parameter, can stress your chickens, especially baby chicks. Instead of bright lights around the clock, the best way to help ease the dark season is to offer them soft light, at no more than 40 watt bulbs. Red lights are even better, and make sure that you turn them off so that your chickens get a good eight hours of darkness. Not Enough Feed or Water Similar to competing for space, birds will have to compete for food and water if you don’t provide enough. Meat chickens in particular will quickly turn to cannibal behavior if not fed enough. Whether you’re feeding meat chickens or laying hens, we have all of proper feed amounts for your flock. Nutritional Deficiencies If the diet of a cooped flock of backyard chickens is solely commercial bags of the same feed, then there’s a good chance that the whole flock is experiencing nutritional deficiencies. Yes, those bags are designed with a specific amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. However, they may not be the best variety of such macronutrients. They may also be lacking important minerals and vitamins. It’s a good idea to switch it up for your chickens. Feed them a different brand of feed every now and then. Bring them your kitchen scraps and garden refuse. Look for specially marked bags of chicken minerals, such as oyster shell for added calcium. Be sure that your birds have access to a variety of dietary materials to fully support their healthy bodies. Mixing of Flock Mates Older birds are sure to become killer chickens when you introduce baby chicks to the same coop. Make sure that your birds are about the same size when you bring new chickens into the flock. Keep babies separated until they’re grown enough to defend themselves. Changes Within the Chicken Coop Has there been a severe change to your flock’s environment? For example, is there a snake sneaking in for eggs that is causing them stress? Did the top hen lose her life, causing the rest to make an attempt to take her place? Is some of their space being flooded out by the season’s torrential rains? Have you recently doubled your flock size? These may seem like silly things to consider when asking why do chickens attack each other, but they are truly drastic changes to the chicken. A chicken’s environment is her whole life. Where she is, what she eats, who is with her? All of her surroundings matter. Keep the stress to a minimum by not giving her too much change at once. If change is necessary, go forth with it, but then watch and see how your chickens react to the change before adding to it. Not Enough Nesting Boxes This one may seem laughable to experienced chicken owners because if you know chickens, then you know that you can give them 14 nest boxes, but they’ll all use the same one. Broody hens taking up residence in the favorite nest box will cause pecking issues. She will peck at anyone attempting to come in to disturb her nest. If she draws blood from another hen while defending her eggs, the rest of the flock will pick at her new wound. I’m not saying that you need 14 nest boxes, but offering them multiple places to lay eggs is a good idea. Injured Chicken in the Flock As mentioned, chickens will be attracted to the sight of blood on an injured flockmate. They will relentlessly peck at it until the injured bird dies. The best thing to do is to remove any injured bird from the flock. Isolate her with food, water, and shade, and tend to her wounds as needed. If she has bald spots due to the injuries, consider leaving her separated until her new feathers grow in. She may not replace them until after her seasonal moult. Introducing New Chickens to the Flock Bringing in one new hen to a large flock is tricky. She will quickly discover her fight or flight reactions to decide where she’ll be in the pecking order. Typically, a new hen will go to the bottom of the pecking order. She will probably get quite a bit of pecking in the beginning, but as soon as she learns her place, the rest will back off. Just carefully watch her for severe injuries. Whenever I bring new birds into a flock, I like to bring several at once. “Safety in numbers” seems to apply to the chicken world. The new birds will stick together within the coop, and although the older birds will let them know who’s boss, the new birds will be fine together in the same space. Additionally, introduce new flock members to the coop at dusk or dark. Quietly set them on the perches right next to your existing birds. When they awaken in the morning, they’re likely to think they know one another, and you’ll have very little fighting amongst them. Why Do Chickens Attack Each Other and How to Stop It Here are the tips we’ve compiled to help alleviate chickens attacking one another. 1. Plenty of Space Remember that they need a minimum of four square feet per bird. Six hens need 24 square feet of living space to give them enough room. 2. Plenty of Food I never let my laying hens run out of food. That’s just the way I like to feed them. I fill feeders in the morning so that at night, they’ve just polished them off. 3. Flock Boredom-Buster Providing some enrichment for your chickens can keep them from mindlessly picking at their flockmates out of boredom. Look into black soldier fly larvae bins for the coop to keep them looking for treats. Toss them a bucketful of grass clippings to scratch through. Offer them plenty of dust baths to not only keep them physically healthy, but to also encourage healthy socialization. 3. Clipped Beak This one is a little controversial, but can make chicken keeping easier. You can have a vet clip their beaks so that they can’t bite each other. I have some birds from a local chicken farm that came to me with clipped beaks. I don’t like the look, but those are the most docile birds that we have. 4. Blinders Using mechanical contraptions such as blinders on the birds, will keep them from pecking their neighbors. This isn’t something I’ve ever tried, so I can’t speak as to their efficacy, but many chicken owners use them. The blinders sit on the top of the chickens’ beaks, blocking their forward views. The hens are only able to use the peripheral vision, which isn’t strong enough to allow them any aggressive behavior to the others. 5. Chicken Breeds Matter Choosing chicken breeds that are known for their docility is a good way to start your chicken keeping experience. Orpingtons and silkies are good examples of birds that are prone to friendliness. Production breeds, such as leghorns, tend to be more naturally aggressive than others. 6. Remove the Aggressive Rooster A mean rooster is never allowed to live here. They get one one chance to be a jerk, and we’ll humble them as needed. If they ever come after us again, they’re gone. We either rehome them with full disclosure as to their temperament, or they become stew. Since I’ve had this hard line with our flock, I’ve figured out the key to nice-rooster success. Introduce a young rooster to your established flock of hens. He will protect them if needed, he will service them with fertility, but he will not likely become aggressive. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I’ve never had a rooster turn aggressive by doing it this way. 7. Healing Open Wounds Make sure to keep healthy chickens together, and remove any birds with open wounds until they’re healed. I like to keep Blue Kote on hand. Chickens are extremely resilient, and I’ve seen them miraculously healed from devastating cuts to full health with Blue Kote. Understanding Pecking Order As the last word on answering the question why do chickens attack each other, I want you to remember that pecking order in chicken flocks in natural. There is a real social hierarchy that matters to them. The term “pecking order” means there’s an alpha chicken at the top of the order, a sad hen at the bottom, and everyone else in between. Nobody picks on the boss hen, usually an older hen, but she may pick on anyone. The number two bird can pick on anyone except the boss hen at the top. The number three bird can pick on everyone except the number one and number two birds…and so on. The sad hen at the bottom is picked on by everyone, but she picks on nobody. Roosters will do this within the flock as well. There will be a head rooster who dominates over the entire flock, and a secondary rooster who is allowed to service hens if the alpha rooster isn’t around. This is all natural chicken behavior. Summary of Why Do Chickens Attack Each Other I encourage you to just sit and watch your flock for a while, and you’ll get a feel of the overall personality of the group. If you’re seeing any aggressive behavior, and you’re asking why do chickens attack each other, see if you can figure out which stressor might trigger the attacks so that you can correct the behavior. I hope this information helps you to keep a healthy flock on your homestead. You may also enjoy reading: How to Keep Chickens During a Hurricane or Other Severe Weather Happy Chicken-Keeping! Donna @ Hazel Belle Farm Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+ years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm. Homesteading