emorems0
Songster
Going to be lots of info here to preface my questions, so... here goes...
I have a 1 year old flock of RIR and Black Australorps including a BA rooster. He was very friendly and good with people all of last year. This spring, something changed in his behavior and lots of things changed in our/his back yard so I'm not sure if the new people aggression is environmental/fixable or just his personality. We really like him and would like to breed some more Black Australorps, but I have kids and will not put up with an aggressive rooster and I certainly don't want to use him for breeding if he has aggression in his genetics.
New things that may have impacted his aggression... Lice, although he was not nearly as affected as his hens, I didn't even treat him because he seemed total fine - I think it was mostly a problem in the nest boxes. He only had 4 hens through the winter and spring and recently lost another. He didn't see/interact with people very much at all through the whole winter because it was so cold and he forgot his rank. Hunger... I had kept the food and water in the coop in the winter and did not move it back out into the run in the spring.. I just didn't seem like they were going through food very fast and I think they just weren't going back in the coop to eat. We got a bunch of new birds this spring cornish cross, Delaware, and Dark Cornish stayed in a chicken tractor and free ranged around the main coop/run, plus we also got 4 turkeys which free ranged and stayed in the tractor with the meat birds.
Since processing the cornish cross, we've moved the Delaware, Cornish, and Turkeys into the main run (but they all roost in a tree/bush rather than the coop and the turkeys often fly over the fence and free range in the yard). We had some predator attacks during the transition period that got all but one of my Delaware, the attacks took place right outside of the main run. Romeo (our BA roo) was doing better for a period after the transition when we opened the run up so it doubled in size and everyone was mixed together. We started going in and feeding him by hand (well, from a cup of food that we were holding). He seemed to be back to his normal self, not caring if we were walking around in the run or caring about what we were doing. Then all of the sudden he was being aggressive again... maybe the predator came back but was unsuccessful? All of the birds were freaked out that afternoon.
Yesterday I removed the laying hens from the roost so I could bathe them as a follow up for the lice treatment. I kept them inside to dry overnight and then put them in the chicken tractor to give them a break from the coop where lice might still be hiding out and from Romeo (they have been overbred since he only has 3 mature hens at the moment and had a good deal of feather loss on their backs and wings/elbows). I wanted to be able to monitor the lice situation since I can't easily catch them to check their butts in the big run and also take them out of the pecking order for a while since they tend to beat up the younger chickens and especially the turkeys. Romeo is NOT happy and I totally understand it right now because I took his girls away. He paces along the run fence and won't eat at all in the main run. He has managed to fly over the run fence and then paces around outside the chicken tractor, foraging a little and being a jerk to any people who come around. I think my plan to give the girls a break outside of the coop is back firing, I can't deal with Romeo being mad about not being with his girls. But I also am hesitant to put them back together again. My BA hen is the worst off... I don't know if her feathers are just brittle, but she is practically bald on her back. I bought saddles a while ago but it doesn't seem to have helped her, maybe the lice were hiding under there but she only had eggs on the bottom, maybe her feathers are just brittle and the saddle made it worse? At any rate, I can't have Romeo trying to mount her with a bald back. Not sure what to do with her because I don't want her in there alone either.
Well this is turning into all about Romeo and my hens, but there is one more piece... I want to eventually breed the Delaware and Dark Cornish for a self sustaining meat bird. I figured they could all share the same coop and run and I'd just move some over to a breeding pen whenever I wanted to collect eggs, but I did my math and my main coop is really only big enough for 8 chickens. I'm going to have to add a second coop somehow before winter rolls around. I'm not sure if I want the Delaware or the Dark Cornish to be the rooster for the meat project. I was leaning toward Delaware because they are supposed to be mild tempered, but we lost both of our little Delaware roos to the fox/raccoon. I kind of want to get a new Delaware roo and keep a Dark Cornish roo for now so that I can see what I get from breeding and then make a decision, but that's way too many roosters for a shared run, right? The Delaware and Dark Cornish are all about 16 weeks now and Romeo doesn't seem to care about them at all. If I brought home an adult Delaware rooster, it would probably be a battle and I'd need to divide the run again probably.
And now I'm at the end and I don't even really know what my question is... the original plan was to keep everyone consolidated for the winter and then separate the meat birds from the laying birds during the warm/breeding seasons. I just can't figure out the logistics and I can't decide if I should keep Romeo or put him in a soup pot. He really is a good rooster and didn't show any people aggression until he was a year old this spring (and with all the other factors going on). I could replace him with a Delaware roo, but then I can't breed any pure BAs (plus we hatched Romeo and we're a little attached).
I have a 1 year old flock of RIR and Black Australorps including a BA rooster. He was very friendly and good with people all of last year. This spring, something changed in his behavior and lots of things changed in our/his back yard so I'm not sure if the new people aggression is environmental/fixable or just his personality. We really like him and would like to breed some more Black Australorps, but I have kids and will not put up with an aggressive rooster and I certainly don't want to use him for breeding if he has aggression in his genetics.
New things that may have impacted his aggression... Lice, although he was not nearly as affected as his hens, I didn't even treat him because he seemed total fine - I think it was mostly a problem in the nest boxes. He only had 4 hens through the winter and spring and recently lost another. He didn't see/interact with people very much at all through the whole winter because it was so cold and he forgot his rank. Hunger... I had kept the food and water in the coop in the winter and did not move it back out into the run in the spring.. I just didn't seem like they were going through food very fast and I think they just weren't going back in the coop to eat. We got a bunch of new birds this spring cornish cross, Delaware, and Dark Cornish stayed in a chicken tractor and free ranged around the main coop/run, plus we also got 4 turkeys which free ranged and stayed in the tractor with the meat birds.
Since processing the cornish cross, we've moved the Delaware, Cornish, and Turkeys into the main run (but they all roost in a tree/bush rather than the coop and the turkeys often fly over the fence and free range in the yard). We had some predator attacks during the transition period that got all but one of my Delaware, the attacks took place right outside of the main run. Romeo (our BA roo) was doing better for a period after the transition when we opened the run up so it doubled in size and everyone was mixed together. We started going in and feeding him by hand (well, from a cup of food that we were holding). He seemed to be back to his normal self, not caring if we were walking around in the run or caring about what we were doing. Then all of the sudden he was being aggressive again... maybe the predator came back but was unsuccessful? All of the birds were freaked out that afternoon.
Yesterday I removed the laying hens from the roost so I could bathe them as a follow up for the lice treatment. I kept them inside to dry overnight and then put them in the chicken tractor to give them a break from the coop where lice might still be hiding out and from Romeo (they have been overbred since he only has 3 mature hens at the moment and had a good deal of feather loss on their backs and wings/elbows). I wanted to be able to monitor the lice situation since I can't easily catch them to check their butts in the big run and also take them out of the pecking order for a while since they tend to beat up the younger chickens and especially the turkeys. Romeo is NOT happy and I totally understand it right now because I took his girls away. He paces along the run fence and won't eat at all in the main run. He has managed to fly over the run fence and then paces around outside the chicken tractor, foraging a little and being a jerk to any people who come around. I think my plan to give the girls a break outside of the coop is back firing, I can't deal with Romeo being mad about not being with his girls. But I also am hesitant to put them back together again. My BA hen is the worst off... I don't know if her feathers are just brittle, but she is practically bald on her back. I bought saddles a while ago but it doesn't seem to have helped her, maybe the lice were hiding under there but she only had eggs on the bottom, maybe her feathers are just brittle and the saddle made it worse? At any rate, I can't have Romeo trying to mount her with a bald back. Not sure what to do with her because I don't want her in there alone either.
Well this is turning into all about Romeo and my hens, but there is one more piece... I want to eventually breed the Delaware and Dark Cornish for a self sustaining meat bird. I figured they could all share the same coop and run and I'd just move some over to a breeding pen whenever I wanted to collect eggs, but I did my math and my main coop is really only big enough for 8 chickens. I'm going to have to add a second coop somehow before winter rolls around. I'm not sure if I want the Delaware or the Dark Cornish to be the rooster for the meat project. I was leaning toward Delaware because they are supposed to be mild tempered, but we lost both of our little Delaware roos to the fox/raccoon. I kind of want to get a new Delaware roo and keep a Dark Cornish roo for now so that I can see what I get from breeding and then make a decision, but that's way too many roosters for a shared run, right? The Delaware and Dark Cornish are all about 16 weeks now and Romeo doesn't seem to care about them at all. If I brought home an adult Delaware rooster, it would probably be a battle and I'd need to divide the run again probably.
And now I'm at the end and I don't even really know what my question is... the original plan was to keep everyone consolidated for the winter and then separate the meat birds from the laying birds during the warm/breeding seasons. I just can't figure out the logistics and I can't decide if I should keep Romeo or put him in a soup pot. He really is a good rooster and didn't show any people aggression until he was a year old this spring (and with all the other factors going on). I could replace him with a Delaware roo, but then I can't breed any pure BAs (plus we hatched Romeo and we're a little attached).