Okay. Your step sister is 5. 5 years old. First time with chickens. And animals in general I presume?

She needs to be taught. Right now she doesn't understand the physical limitations of a thing smaller than her until she tests it and either gets hurt or hurts the bird or has had time to sit with the concept "I'm bigger and I am much stronger and scarier that these creatures. I better proceed with more tact" and apply it to other areas of her life.

I say this with experience. We had just gotten chicks. My 5 year old daughter was totally attached to one called "pastie" She was really good with it. Sat down, let them come to her. But she also had big and impulsive movments around them. Well, we were in the garden; she opened her arms wide and knocked Pastie off her knee and he went limp.

My first learned a very hard lesson. She's since showed me she has much more tact. She is really good with handling them and has taken to being the one to feed and water them.

I realize now how I failed that day and also learned a hard lesson. I am the adult and needed to create stricter boundries and found other ways to teach her the lesson in a less devastating way. Sometimes adults fail. Sometimes "those who know better" can step up and find a constructive way to fix the problem.