4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[madchickenlady]

My youngest pekin girl, Maeve, has always been the sweetest, friendliest little hen. She is not laying yet, and is approx 20 weeks old. All of a sudden, in literally the last couple of days, she's become very aggressive. To people She is running up to me as usual, but when I go to stroke her, she's pecking me, and even charging at me with all her feathers up. Now, she is the smallest, and does get a bit of a hard time from the others (nothing too serious, just general chasing away from treats etc) but she is able to eat/drink and roost without problems. Has anyone else experienced this? Is she going through chicken puberty, and this is her take on slamming doors and yelling 'I hate yoouuuuuu!!!!'? Very sad to see such a lovely hen turn this way

[Egluntyne]

Erm......are you absolutely sure that she is a hen?

[madchickenlady]

Oh yes, definitely a lady Pekins tend to be very easy to sex, and she has no male charcteristics at all. I'm hoping that she'll become lovely again once she starts laying....

[Egluntyne]

Let's hope so.

[Barkisland]

Maybe she is having a pre laying hormonal surge? Could be a sign that your eggs are on the way. Does her comb flush red?

[madchickenlady]

Not that I've noticed, but she did launch a stealth attack on one of my other hens earlier Must be a hormonal thing

[simon_blackwell1]

My chickens are getting increasingly hormonal. Their faces are beoming redder at last and they've started doing the squatting thing when you reach for them. They've also become increasingly vocal when not allowed to free range and they know you're there. i spent Sunday setting up a new free ranging area for them so that they wouldn't eat one of the nicer flower beds and they did nothing but scold me loudly the whole time. They cheered up immediately when I let them out.

 

On the good side, they're much more comfortable with human contact now and I hope their moaning wills top once they're laying.

[madchickenlady]

Well, there must be something in the water, because yesterday afternoon two of my girls had a huge fight. It's very surprising, as these two have been raised from eggs together, and have always been firm friends Doris inflicted some serious damage on Belinda's comb, and is now serving time in the broody cage to give everyone a chance to settle down It was a dust up over the nest box, so I suspect that Doris may in fact be going broody. Maybe the warm weather has created some kind of communal hormonal craziness? Anyone else's pure breed girls gone a bit loco?

[chickencam]

One of my Pepperpots Eggy has been pecking me more and more recently, I think that she is attention seeking