Pecking order / chook fights

The chicken world can be very unglamorous, even red in beak and claw.

A few weeks ago we lost our alpha chicken Katie. She was a lovely hen, very friendly and up for a cuddle, but had had a long slow demise and was I think a very old chicken. We found her being chewed by a monitor lizard (a kind of two metre dinosaurian throwback we get here) in the coop, but I suspect it was more a scavenge than a kill.

Anyway, the upshot is that now the pecking order is up for challenge, and I’ve had fighting chickens most days. Mostly it’s harmless stuff, lots of ruffled necks and kicking, but today one of the white sussex had a showdown with a red hen, and it wasn’t pretty. I found them at it under the house, the sussex apparently winning, going from the amount of blood on her, but the red hen not giving up.

pecking order
Chickens will fight till one wins

The hens range freely, so any loser has scope to run away. I suppose that they just have to fight it out. After all, they will all sleep together tonight.

My favourite cockerel is coming on nicely and seems a nice chap, so with any luck he will step in and take charge in a few more weeks.

Update.

I wanted to check the outcome before posting, and things did come to a head. The red hen just kept picking fights and got really beaten up. I noticed one day she stayed on the perch, then realised she had both eyes closed up, looked like a boxer, so I washed her up and put her in solitude for a night. She’s subdued, but was up at the coop to be put away with the others yesterday, so hopefully the issue is solved.