I witnessed something today which I have never before witnessed in poultry-dom. Let's set the stage. I have roughly 15 roosters which roam the grounds here. Most are juvenilles which I just haven't had time to take to auction, or I plan to use them for breeding later, or I just like them and have kept them. They're always fighting, but never anything too serious. Because of them all, I keep the hens behind portable electric netting or naturally they'd naturally get brutalized by all the randy roosters chasing them. I leave one rooster in with the hens, and he does a chivalrous job protecting his ladies if any fly out of the net and are getting harassed. We move the field shelter/netting on Sundays and it's always chaos. It usually takes a day or two to get all the hens finally back to the shelter and the netting back up. I try to keep a closer eye on them, knowing the rooster zerg will be out for as much sex as they can sneak in. I was in the field, fiddling with a float valve, and noticed out of the corner of my eye a rooster fight. I usually take no notice of them, because I know they're brief. I figured it was Ollie (the lucky fellah who lives with the ~50 hens) chasing off "the boys" again. The fight was kind of going on, so I looked up to take notice. It wasn't roosters at all. It was one of my dark cornish hens fighting a speckled sussex rooster. She was in there blow for blow and wasn't backing down one bit. She was all "poofed up" with her feathers standing out, and she was jumping and kicking the cockrell in the head just like a rooster would fight. Finally, the rooster gave up and the hen won the day. I was gobsmacked. I know the Cornish are tough little girls; and I imagine it wasn't the "happy ending" the rooster had hoped for. Like I said, I have never seen anything like that before.
Yes well done to your girl!!! My Blackie also gave the rooster some stick!!!!Shes an old fashioned type of girl, nothing like these days!
My elder laying hens will fight and chase the young roos all over the lot. Talk about a royal scolding! It's funny. They don't take anything off those young guys. The elder roo has the patience and wisdom to know not to push things with those gals. Some of the young EE hens in our flock are pretty fiesty too.
I have a little silky hen who took on a visiting rooster. She did the whole jumping up and clawing with the feet bit like your hen did. It was so strange because she doesn't really fight with the dogs like the other two hens do, nor does she really fight with the other two hens, who are always having little disputes between themselves. The rooster was a bantie and her size, so she just went after him. I had to remove him because she was getting so rough. It was so funny! I guess plucky hens do what needs to be done!
