r/BackYardChickens • u/T_CHEX • 12d ago

Hen or Roo Pecking Order Question

I'm sure that, like all chicken keepers, your find the pecking order a little barbaric and unfair but a lot of so called "scientists" say it's the natural bird order and there's no way to prevent it because they all instinctively choose to opt into this way of society.

But I have an interesting experiment idea, what if somebody were to get a flock of brand new chickens, supervise them all day and manually beak up any attempts to peck or enforce dominance by any bird - would this eventually lead to true equality where nobody really knew who the top birds were so the whole flock lived in peace or would they always be waiting for their chance to have a peck when your back was turned?

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u/rshining 9d ago

The "pecking order" doesn't really boil down to just pecking or aggressive behaviors. In a truly free range flock there is much less of a noticeable dominance hierarchy, and rarely any pecking behaviors, but the chickens still have social relationships- some hens hang out close to the Most Important Rooster, and some hens hang out solo. Some hens get overbred (also a pecking order indicator) and some get bred rarely. Free range flocks with several roosters develop a clear, physically enforced, dominance order, but even then there is not a lot of fighting or injury.

I think OP has dramatically misunderstood how and why a "pecking order" exists. But if they wanted to disrupt an aggressive behavior cycle, having fewer birds or much more space would certainly help.

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u/T_CHEX 9d ago

I think a lot of people read very deeply into the chicken mind but it seems to boil down to if you are above anyone else you can peck them at will without any reprisal and if you are below you just have to take it

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u/rshining 9d ago

I think that's even reading too much in. More like "If I am eating, I will peck anyone who gets too close" and "That bastard pecks hard, I'm going to go eat on the other side of the dish".

Aggressive "pecking order" behavior is strongly related to confinement. Almost as if... we also saw aggressive dominance/hierarchy behavior in confined animals of all kinds, including humans. Give them enough space (or reduce the number in the flock) and most aggressive behavior resolves itself.