Chickens really do have a pecking order – they literally peck at each other to establish who is the ‘top chicken’. If they peck another chicken to the point where it bleeds, they continue to peck at the bleeding chicken and they actually can kill it. The upside of this is that chickens can be not all that smart, and there is a way to take advantage of this.
Chicken keepers have figured out a way to add a new chicken to the flock safely, without triggering a massive pecking on it. They sneak the new chicken into the flock at night, right onto the roost with the other sleeping chickens. When they awaken the next day, they accept that new chicken as one who has been there with there with them all along. . .after all, the new chicken was there on the roost when they woke up; she must have been there when they retired the evening before.
One of our barred rock hens started “setting.” We had put a fake egg in the nest to encourage the hens to lay in that box/nest. They did, but once she started to “set,” she had only that one fake egg under her. She sat on that egg for the required time for it to hatch, about 22 days. It didn’t, of course, and she seemed to almost go crazy. I bought two baby chicks at the farm store and placed them under her one night. That was supposed to make her think they were hers when she awoke the next morning. DID NOT WORK! She almost pecked them to death before I could remove them from the nest. I tried this several nights, but finally gave up since she was not going to accept the baby chicks. Go figure.
Hi Wayland,
Thanks for the message – that is very bad luck! I hope the chicks are ok?
Normally that trick always works, but I guess sometimes chickens are smarter than us?