I have a pair of chickens kept around as pets. One is a male silkie and the other is a wild chicken that we took in as a baby chick that was abandoned by its mom. The chick would always start screaming every time no one was in the room with it so my roommate ended up buying a silkie chicken from his friend since that was his intent anyway.
The two grew up inside the house together. The silkie was always the more lazy one with the wild chicken being more energetic. The wild chicken was younger than the silkie by at least a few weeks, but would always get its way over the silkie due to how passive it was. It was pretty safe to say it was on the top of the pecking order. Eventually, the silkie grew up and we realized it was a rooster. The roommate didn't like that because of fears it would start crowing. His friend assured him that silkies are rather quiet and won't crow much. That turned out not to be true and so we got an outdoor coop for the two of them since the rooster was far too loud indoors.
It took some acclamation, but eventually they seemed to be doing alright. I'd let them out whenever I got home from work to let them play around in the garden and reward them with a handful of meal worms before shutting them into the upper coop area for the night.
Everything seemed OK for the past few weeks until two days ago. It was my day off and I heard the rooster making a big commotion so I went outside to check it out. When I approached the coop, I immediately saw the wild chicken's head covered in blood so I took the chicken inside, sprayed some antibiotics on the wound, and put it back in the cage we had them in originally to keep them separated.
I then went outside to check on the rooster. It too had a (much smaller) wound on its crown. I grabbed the silkie to spray it with the same antibiotic and it bit me when I tried to pick it up. It's always been skittish with being picked up, but this was the first time it actually bit me. I assumed it was just because of the stressful situation it found itself in that day.
I assume the injuries were cause by them getting into a fight since they were in the coop at the time this occurred, but it is also possible that they injured themselves trying to push the door open with their heads or something. The silkie also seems to have gotten a lot more aggressive lately since today when I took it out to play around outside, it kept trying to run off outside of the area I allow it to explore and every time I'd go to push it back into the appropriate area, it would bite me. This happened four times at which point I decided I'd had enough and put it in the upper coop area for the night. Based on its vocalizations, it did not seem very happy about that at all.
So right now, I've got the wild chicken (which I'm rather sure is a hen) inside and the silkie outside. I'll be keeping them separated at least until the wounds fully heal, but based on this event, I'm not sure if I should put them back together at all. If they really did get into a fight bad enough to cause the hen to bleed as badly as it did when I found it, if they get into another such fight while I'm at work, it doesn't seem like a good idea to leave them together unattended. The good news (for the hen at least) is that it seems to be a lot happier inside for some reason. Likely either because of my piano playing (it seems to really like that) or just because it can see me more often during the day. The rooster seems not as happy as it now crows almost a quarter of the time it's awake as if desparqtely trying to attract other chickens.
I'm mainly curious to know what could be causing the silkie to get so suddenly aggressive. My main suspicion is boredom, but one of the biggest reasons we talked about getting an outdoor coop before we even found out about the silkie being a rooster was because we thought they would have more fun outside than inside. The next suspicion I had was space. The coop says it's large enough for two chickens, but we don't have a proper run set up for them to work with while I'm out of the house. Maybe it's too cramped for their liking? Problem with that is they seemed to be fine in a much smaller cage while inside. The third is discomfort. I live in Hawaii and the silkie is very fluffy. The current weather is very warm and maybe the heat is causing the silkie a lot of stress which would explain why it only started after we moved them outside where it's a lot hotter. Any insight would be appreciated and if there is any further information needed that could shed more light on the situation, I'll answer any questions as best I can.
The two grew up inside the house together. The silkie was always the more lazy one with the wild chicken being more energetic. The wild chicken was younger than the silkie by at least a few weeks, but would always get its way over the silkie due to how passive it was. It was pretty safe to say it was on the top of the pecking order. Eventually, the silkie grew up and we realized it was a rooster. The roommate didn't like that because of fears it would start crowing. His friend assured him that silkies are rather quiet and won't crow much. That turned out not to be true and so we got an outdoor coop for the two of them since the rooster was far too loud indoors.
It took some acclamation, but eventually they seemed to be doing alright. I'd let them out whenever I got home from work to let them play around in the garden and reward them with a handful of meal worms before shutting them into the upper coop area for the night.
Everything seemed OK for the past few weeks until two days ago. It was my day off and I heard the rooster making a big commotion so I went outside to check it out. When I approached the coop, I immediately saw the wild chicken's head covered in blood so I took the chicken inside, sprayed some antibiotics on the wound, and put it back in the cage we had them in originally to keep them separated.
I then went outside to check on the rooster. It too had a (much smaller) wound on its crown. I grabbed the silkie to spray it with the same antibiotic and it bit me when I tried to pick it up. It's always been skittish with being picked up, but this was the first time it actually bit me. I assumed it was just because of the stressful situation it found itself in that day.
I assume the injuries were cause by them getting into a fight since they were in the coop at the time this occurred, but it is also possible that they injured themselves trying to push the door open with their heads or something. The silkie also seems to have gotten a lot more aggressive lately since today when I took it out to play around outside, it kept trying to run off outside of the area I allow it to explore and every time I'd go to push it back into the appropriate area, it would bite me. This happened four times at which point I decided I'd had enough and put it in the upper coop area for the night. Based on its vocalizations, it did not seem very happy about that at all.
So right now, I've got the wild chicken (which I'm rather sure is a hen) inside and the silkie outside. I'll be keeping them separated at least until the wounds fully heal, but based on this event, I'm not sure if I should put them back together at all. If they really did get into a fight bad enough to cause the hen to bleed as badly as it did when I found it, if they get into another such fight while I'm at work, it doesn't seem like a good idea to leave them together unattended. The good news (for the hen at least) is that it seems to be a lot happier inside for some reason. Likely either because of my piano playing (it seems to really like that) or just because it can see me more often during the day. The rooster seems not as happy as it now crows almost a quarter of the time it's awake as if desparqtely trying to attract other chickens.
I'm mainly curious to know what could be causing the silkie to get so suddenly aggressive. My main suspicion is boredom, but one of the biggest reasons we talked about getting an outdoor coop before we even found out about the silkie being a rooster was because we thought they would have more fun outside than inside. The next suspicion I had was space. The coop says it's large enough for two chickens, but we don't have a proper run set up for them to work with while I'm out of the house. Maybe it's too cramped for their liking? Problem with that is they seemed to be fine in a much smaller cage while inside. The third is discomfort. I live in Hawaii and the silkie is very fluffy. The current weather is very warm and maybe the heat is causing the silkie a lot of stress which would explain why it only started after we moved them outside where it's a lot hotter. Any insight would be appreciated and if there is any further information needed that could shed more light on the situation, I'll answer any questions as best I can.
