Araucana thread anyone?

[cashdl]

Beautiful pictures Haiku, I love her coloring.


Lanae

 

[smoothmule]

Lanae,

I bet your rooster will settle down, especially if you ignore him or confront him. I've done both and they get the idea. They're just trying to be big boys and impress the girls. I wouldn't tolerate a mean rooster but, in general, I don't think it's mean-ness sometimes. They just have to test things and see what response they get. I've been known to scream and stomp and scare the bejeebers out of them, grab them up and hug and pet them, chase them waving a stick in the air and other crazy things that I get a kick out of doing. It pretty much freaks them out and they forget what they were doing, lol. You need to keep him around to make nice black roosters

 

[cashdl]

I wish that were true Cathy. I am pretty sure he is just mean. I have confronted him plenty of times. I will grab him hold him down till he relaxes then let him up. He is fine. But each time I step back into the pen it is a new day. I have grabbed him by the throat and thrown him ( yeah, not my finest moment). He settles down till I step back in the pen. I spent an entire day working with him. No exageration. Each time I went back in the pen it was the same. I let all my roos out with their girls to free range one at a time. I was hesitant with him and rightly so. He spent his day going after me every time my back was turned and most times when I was facing him. It is making me mad just to think about it. I have tried catching him and holding him upside down. Didn't work. His brain resets each time I step out of his pen. I have chased him and he actually comes at me. No fear with this one. I have dealt with fiesty roos before and won. I am not afraid of him, I am afraid I will kill him with my bare hands when he attacks me. I don't mind killing him if I am going to eat him, but he makes me want to choke the life out of him sometimes.

I am most likely going to have to eat him. Hopefully one of his babies will be good enough to replace him in the breeding pens. I have a double tufted black roo chick out of him that I have high hopes for. The double tufted birchen chick turned out to have a tail. I still have a few eggs set from his pen and he is not gone yet.


Lanae

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Get rid of him Lanae - you will have your place back and you will feel so much better!!!!!!! I know. I just did this and wow - what a relief!
I lost my two Marans roosters at the beginning of this breeding season (the world's two sweetest boys, honestly, there are none sweeter than those two were). I had a waiting list a mile long for Marans chicks and no roosters. I called a breeder who lives three hrs away - a very, very serious Marans guy who's birds are THE REAL THING. I was so delighted, SO DELIGHTED that he had two roosters he was willing to sell me. I drove out the next day, a six hr round trip to pick up these two new, gorgeous, stunning, magnificent roosters. I was so excited to bring these high pedigreed boys into my lines.
Yeah, well, until the EVIL one made me regret the very day I thought I liked chocolate colored eggs. I have had mean roosters. I have calmed mean roosters many times. I had never dreamed that a rooster could be this inherently rotten. He would charge the fence line, attacking it if I walked by. I would not open the pen without him charging the door and trying to spur me. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt - a new move, he had been raised by a man and now I was a woman intruding in his world, etc..... I would scoop him up and walk around with him, talking softly, telling him how much I desperately wanted him to settle in. All the while he would be tearing holes in my jacket with his nasty beak and spurring my side. I really wondered if it was possible for chickens to contract rabies - he seemed rabid at times.
I tried everything! I had spent so much money on him and driven such a long way and he was such a beautiful rooster. But the day came when he bloodied up my shins through my heavy duty blue jeans. I walked into the house and showed my husband who said "No rooster like that is going to live here." Walked out, grabbed the boy up and wrung his neck. I have never seen my husband do anything like this before. He always shakes after shooting a chicken because he hates so much to have to do so. But not this time. I grabbed a glass of wine and he grabbed a beer and we went out and sat in our yard looking out over our peaceful flock of chickens and just felt GOOD.
There is no point to raising nasty roosters when the world is so full of good ones.

 

[cashdl]

I was such a sight yesterday. I opened his chicken tractor to feed him and his girls and he lunged and caught my hand. I went into kill mode and crawled into his tractor, thru wet chicken poop and lunged at him. I landed on my chest with him pecking at me. I caught him and started to squeeze the life out of him, but came to my somewhat filthy senses. I crawled back out dragging him by the neck, (loosly) then tossed him back in and walked away. I went and played with the baby chicks cause that always calms me down. I have never hated an animal, but I hate that one.

I did let him out one day with his girls and my favorite roo and his girls. I knew there would be a fight and I was hoping my guy would take him down a peg. they chased each other around and around the lawn for quite a while. Every once in a while they would lunge at the other one. No blood was drawn or even feathers really pulled. They simply tired each other out and I was able to walk up to the mean one and pick him up. I wonder if I build a nice sized pen and put another roo and girls in with him, maybe that would take the starch out of him. It might keep him occupied enough that I can at least feed and clean in peace. HMMM!!


I am happy you have your yard back Megan. A mean roo is stressful. Especially when you put so much effort into getting him. My marans roo was a behind head as he was growing up, now he is very sweet. I am so glad, because he is huge.

Lanae

 

[coberdor]

Maybe you just need a little chicken treadmill.

I agree that there are too many nice roosters to keep a nasty one. I just processed my very large EE roo who would attack every time I walked in. My husband wouldn't even go in the pen with him (DH wasn't raised on a farm). So just recently he attacked me for the last time. I grabbed him, rung his neck and cooked him up. He was a bit tough, but tasty! I'll replace him with one of my clean faced araucana roos that I hatched out. I have about 8 roos that hatched out. They are all in their bachelor coop & run.

Smoothmule, I just put in a dozen eggs from Spot. I'm hoping to get some tufted chicks from him. He's so happy in with his 6 hens and about 6 pullets from this year's hatch. What a good boy he is!

Carmel

 

[Quirky]

Wow, those are some stories. As some of you know, I'm new and just have one sweet little cockerel. But my neighbor has a Jersey Giant rooster who doesn't like me. He chased me once and I dropped my eggs and jumped onto a car. My husband finds this story hilarious, but that is one big bird and I am a small fillet.

Gomez (my guy) is calm when I hold him, but he is happier on the ground. He's good with my children so far, and I hope it stays that way.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:

I'm totally stealing this. Next time someone cuts me off on the hight way I'm ready; " you BEHIND HEAD you, watch where you're driving!"

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
None taste better than the nasty one's.

Yum yum.

 

[coberdor]

Quote:
None taste better than the nasty one's.

Yum yum.

You've got that right. We enjoyed every bite!