Are cockerels a threat to chicks?

[broodymum]

Hi all. I was invaded by foxes last week and 14 of my chickens were taken before I had chance to lock them up for the evening. I locked the ones up that were left and kept them locked in in case the fox came back. The fox did come back, broke into the locked coup and took three more chickens! My partner caught him in the act and managed to retrieve a very poorly and scared cockerel. I put this cockerel in with my broody to give him quiet space and he seems to have recovered though hasn’t crowed since and has lost his ‘cockiness’. What I want to know is my broody is due to hatch this weekend. Normally I leave them a coup to themselves when they’re hatching so I’m not sure if the cockerel posts a danger to the hatching chicks (or once they’ve hatched). Does anyone have experience of this? Do I need to move the cockerel before she hatches? Thank you

 

[MysteryChicken]

Hi all. I was invaded by foxes last week and 14 of my chickens were taken before I had chance to lock them up for the evening. I locked the ones up that were left and kept them locked in in case the fox came back. The fox did come back, broke into the locked coup and took three more chickens! My partner caught him in the act and managed to retrieve a very poorly and scared cockerel. I put this cockerel in with my broody to give him quiet space and he seems to have recovered though hasn’t crowed since and has lost his ‘cockiness’. What I want to know is my broody is due to hatch this weekend. Normally I leave them a coup to themselves when they’re hatching so I’m not sure if the cockerel posts a danger to the hatching chicks (or once they’ve hatched). Does anyone have experience of this? Do I need to move the cockerel before she hatches? Thank you

How old is the cockerel?


Also if he tries to breed the broody while she's sitting, it may cause her to crush the eggs with the unhatched chicks.

 

[esme13]

I don’t have experience with this, but my own intuition would be to keep the cockerel separated from the broody hen. There could be aggression that emerges when the babies start to hatch or just rough curiosity.