Anyone ever seen a rooster Mama a chick?

[LoriLovesLace]

Anyone ever seen a rooster Mama a chick? This is my blue cochin bantam on the roost with a chick in his feathers.

 

[eggbert420]

 

[Eggzilla]

I've never seen that but I say it is 2017 and that rooster can mama a chick if he wants to!

 

[bobbi-j]

A few years ago, I had a broody with week old chicks that I'd kept separated for that first week. As soon as I let them out, the mama headed for the door, anxious to take a dust bath. The chicks stood at the edge of the door, unsure what to do. All of a sudden the rooster (who until that point had had no contact with the chicks, but had seen them through the wire fence) was there, babysitting the chicks until mama had finished her dust bath. He kept them all together, moved them away from the door, and stayed right with them. I haven't seen a rooster with chicks in his feathers like yours, though. That's cute!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Anyone ever seen a rooster Mama a chick? This is my blue cochin bantam on the roost with a chick in his feathers.

Yes, I have seen this often but where some of you have only one or two roosters I raised or helped raise hundreds each year.

 

[centrarchid]

It is repeatable. Some breeds may have a genetic predisposition for it. My games certainly do and it may have been biologically significant during much of their domesticated history.

Rooster below is one of several that recently got broody. He and hen worked together so in that case did not involve orphans.

Details in following thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/882368/what-to-look-for-in-a-broody-rooster


I use the flexibility in the rooster behavior suppress fighting among game chicks that can at times kill each other. Somehow the rooster suppress the aggression while the hen does not. Until last year I used only mature cocks but someone pointed out that stags / cockerels can suppress the aggression even though they do not go broody.

Grandson of rooster above will be made broody and used to make videos this summer showing the extreme behaviors associated with a broody rooster.