I have 12 eight week old chicks, 5 of them are roosters. They are starting to show some signs of aggression towards each other. Are they just trying to figure out the pecking order or are they just being roosters? They're pecking each other to bleeding sometimes.
Right now, they're free ranging with their mom and the big rooster is in the coop by himself. My big rooster is highly people aggressive towards me and no one else. Do they pass on the aggressive tendencies to their offspring? There is one baby roo who is showing a little bit of people aggression towards me, he's running up to me and being very forward. The others aren't like that, they shy away but are still friendly.
Should I separate them in a group of just roo's or separate them by themselves in individual pens? Or should I just leave them and let them figure it out for themselves. The big rooster is getting his own smaller pen and then all the babies and the hen are going back into the big coop, but the rooster is very rough with all of them, so I had to separate them. Plus, I needed to be able to get to the babies and the hen without being attacked by the big rooster all the time.
I know that most of the time when roo's are raised together, they get along well. But I don't want them to hurt each other, especially having such a mean parent!
BTW they're all jersey giants.They were broody raised then separated from mom when they were 5 weeks old, due to her picking out a few chicks to try to kill. Then I put her out to range with them and they've resolved their issues and she's teaching them she's top hen!
I'm going to sell most, if not all of the roos, in May. So they won't be here for that much longer.
What do you guys do when they start to act like little roosters?!
Right now, they're free ranging with their mom and the big rooster is in the coop by himself. My big rooster is highly people aggressive towards me and no one else. Do they pass on the aggressive tendencies to their offspring? There is one baby roo who is showing a little bit of people aggression towards me, he's running up to me and being very forward. The others aren't like that, they shy away but are still friendly.
Should I separate them in a group of just roo's or separate them by themselves in individual pens? Or should I just leave them and let them figure it out for themselves. The big rooster is getting his own smaller pen and then all the babies and the hen are going back into the big coop, but the rooster is very rough with all of them, so I had to separate them. Plus, I needed to be able to get to the babies and the hen without being attacked by the big rooster all the time.
I know that most of the time when roo's are raised together, they get along well. But I don't want them to hurt each other, especially having such a mean parent!
BTW they're all jersey giants.They were broody raised then separated from mom when they were 5 weeks old, due to her picking out a few chicks to try to kill. Then I put her out to range with them and they've resolved their issues and she's teaching them she's top hen!
I'm going to sell most, if not all of the roos, in May. So they won't be here for that much longer.
What do you guys do when they start to act like little roosters?!