How do I help my chickens establish a pecking order?

The “pecking order” is the natural hierarchy within your flock and new chickens might cause changes in this order.  The pecking order establishes who is the boss and this might sometimes be done by the “boss” pecking others exhibiting dominant behaviours.

Whilst a new order is being established monitor your flock to ensure no chickens are being bullied, as sometimes this behaviour can become quite vicious and hens can become injured.  Once free from parasites, introduce new chickens to the flock slowly, providing lots of food and water stations to avoid confrontation at this point and, be prepared to separate the chickens behaving badly and re-introduce again if needed.