Hi David,
The General>Priority Settings were set in a way that the small ones got calculated before the larger ones. I’m certainly not familiar with such a “dynamically cascading” style of Hair, so, I can only experiment.
I have set the Priorities from large object to small: Which means the smaller ones should have a higher number (=calculated after the bigger) If left alone (default) the object manager and their current position in it should work just fine. So, next point.
The whole set up looks like a root, so the question might be, do you need Gravity on these at all, as that seems to be the main influence in the set up. At least what influences the initial movement.
I switched in all three instances the Gravity to zero and used a Sphere as “Collider” and it worked nicely.
Besides that I relaxed everything (from large to small) and after each relaxing, the one in question was then “set as dynamics”.
Perhaps, there is something in my exploration that makes your scene work. Again, Hair was so far not in any of my productions in that cascading way, so no experience that count.
All the best
Sassi