Amber and Honey’s latest battle

Amber and Honey have been together on the farm where they were hatched, from chicks. They have been together with us for a year and a half. Ever since they have been with us they have had little spats between themselves every now and again.

None of our other girls have done this outside of when they were chicks doing the chest thumping, ruff raising, running at each other to establish their pecking order. Amber and Honey are best friends ninety percent of the time and are inseparable but every now again they have a battle.

It used to be ruff raising and jumping at each other but recently it has become more aggressive with pecking to each others comb and face and drawing blood.

If I see this happening I try to stop it by water spraying or picking one of them up and holding them for a while but sometimes it happens when I am not there.

It was six weeks ago that it last happened and Amber got pecked on the face and we think it got infected as it swelled up. She has been fully back to normal for two weeks now.

Yesterday afternoon I heard a lot of commotion with the whole flock shouting. When I investigated I found that once again Amber’s face and comb had been pecked and was bleeding.

Honey had a little blood on her comb but Amber’s was very much worse. It was obvious that they had had another spat. They were very vocal especially Amber. Usually they are sitting together again half an hour later but this seemed to be a real falling out. If Honey got any where near Amber she would be very vocal and they stayed well clear of each other for the rest of the afternoon.

Amber’s bloodied comb

The other side of Amber’s face

Honey’s face seems fine

Amber continued to complain all afternoon and at bedtime Amber and Honey were perched separately. Usually they sit next to each other or at least close to each other. Last night they were on different perches and even facing the opposite way.

The other surprise was that Emerald left the shoe box and joined the girls on the perch.

Another change to the bedtime line up

From left to right we have Amber, Toffee, Emerald, Topaz and Sparkle then on the other perch Honey, Peaches and Barley. Emerald is actually on my little chair at this point but she later moved across to the perch.

This really does look like a bit of a sulk going on here. I had earlier considered separating them but soon decided that wouldn’t work. They are together happily most of the time and I wouldn’t be able to tell when this would be likely to happen again. After being together for a year and a half I decided they just have to work it out themselves. They are numbers three and four in a pecking order of eight so I really don’t know why they are doing this.

Amber always comes off worse and yet so far has always maintained her position above Honey. They were once the bottom two so I wonder if because Honey was bottom girl and is now near the top she is trying to move further up. Amber has always been feisty and will not give way.

Early this morning when I was doing my first clean up of the day Amber and Honey suddenly started again. They were hanging on to each other but before I could move to intervene Topaz grabbed Amber and broke it up. Good top hen Topaz.

Amber ran off to the furthest corner of the run under the ladder and stayed there. Honey casually moved over to the big bush.

All the while I cleaned up the run Amber stayed in her corner. I did an inspection of her face now that the blood had dried up and saw that she had five little peck marks to her comb.

A little later I looked out of the window and Amber was still tucked into the same corner of the run. I think her feelings have been hurt.

A little later again I went back in and they were all back to normal apart from the fact that Amber and Honey were not together. This is their biggest falling out yet. I will be watching to see if the pecking order remains the same.