Pecking Chickens

For quite some time, we had the chickens broken of the pecking at us habit. (There was nothing more annoying than Cluck pecking at my ankles while I was trying to give them fresh food!) Well today I was collecting eggs when Big Crown ran right up to me and pecked at my hand. This really surprised me since she almost never does this and recently none of the chickens had been either. Their beaks are remarkably sharp and on more than one occasion they have made me bleed. We have read, from many sources, that the best thing you can do is swat at the bird to establish yourself as higher in the pecking order. I just hate doing this, but we really have to. She seemed surprised when I hit her, and she ran to the other side of the cage. (I promise I didn't hit her too hard and hurt her.) I was able to collect the rest of the eggs and change the water/food without further incident. With the holiday and both of us being busier than normal at work, we haven't spent as much time with the chickens as we normally do. You can tell that they aren't as social as usual. We will have to make more of an effort to spend time around them.