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I have two feeders, several window baskets with their favorite flowers and a large fuschia plant and they still fight constantly! There are at least three females and two males who are always fighting each other. I don't remember hummers being so very territorial. I would like to ensure that all the hummers get as much food as they want but since everyone is fighting all the time, nobody gets to drink for more than a second.
Can you hang them where they cannot be seen from the other feeders
(around the corner, behind a tree or bush)?
The other hint I have heard but not seen is to mass the feeders together so that it is too exhausting to defend. My MIL said to use an umbrella style clothes line and use 10 feeders and some hanging baskets on it.
I've never seen hummers "play nice"
I've tried spacing them out (I have feeders & flowers in front and back) but it hasn't seemed to helpt the fighting. I could try hanging them closer together though. Ten seems like a bit much for me but I can try another feeder or two.
Hummers are feisty little guys and can become involved in phenomenal fights and chases. When I lived in New Mexico we had lots of hummers come to out feeders, sometimes well over a dozen at a time, and the aerial battles were something to behold. They will perch near a feeder and just wait for some one to try and dip their beak in "their" feeder. I don't know which species you have but some are more aggressive than others. The rufous hummers used to drive all of the other away towards the latter part of the migration.
Spreading out the feeders may help some but with the degree of territoriality they show there will still be spectacular hummer fights.
