Are hens emotionally attached to roosters?

[donrae]

I posted this in your other thread.....did you try it?



Also, a rooster may, or may not, 'protect' your flock from predators...he may warn them in time to take cover, or may just get eaten first, or he may just run and hide at the first sign of trouble.

This is so true. A young rooster especially can't be expected to do much more than sound an alert while he's running for cover himself.

 

[DanEP]

All good news, thanks!! We didn't actually want any roos to begin with. We mail ordered and I think a new chick sexer was being trained on our order, lol. Yes, all three have gone after us humans more then once. Now we are thinking it would be good to have 1 roo for flock protection, given that we have hawks and fox that frequent our area in the Spring.

If these guys have all gone after you I'd cull them all. To me it's not worth always having to watch over my shoulder for mean roo's for the protection he may or may not provide.The girls won't miss them at all, and a hen only flock works just fine. If you decide that you want to raise chicks later roo's are easy to find often for free.

 

[centrarchid]

Hens can have an attachment to roosters. With my setup I have harems interspersed among classical flocks. The flocks are constituted by larger groups of juveniles and sub-adults. The number of individuals within flocks can range 2 to 30+. The sub-adult males are the ones that commit the undesired behaviors against hens and pullets. The harems are represented by one adult rooster and from 1 to 4 hens plus their offspring of that year. The harems are led by the adult male while the flocks are led by whoever is most motivated at the time. Removing males from a flock makes little or no difference on remainder of flock but removing a harem master can cause a harem to dissolve. Hens with dependent offspring are stressed by loss of harem master while those not so obligated will readily accept another harem master on same territory or move into another harem if allowed by those residents. Hens with offspring get along well only with their harem master, not other harem masters.

Interactions can be complex and terms cockerel, cock, hen, and pullet help sort that out. Stop using the term rooster.

 

[bobbi-j]

I don't doubt that chickens can be used to being with other chickens, but I wonder if it's an emotional attachment, or is it what they're used to? When I've had separate flocks, they don't mix. One flock will keep to one part of the property, the other flock goes somewhere else. But again - is it because the hens are emotionally attached to their leader, or because they're used to that particular rooster? I don't run nearly as many chickens as you do, Centrarchid, and I only have my limited experience to go on.

 

[aart]

I don't think we can ever really know what chickens 'feel'....I've asked them and they won't tell me.

 

[centrarchid]

They clearly have moods / mental states they can communicate although it is either not as rich or understandable to me as in humans. Even some humans are tough to read especially when sound is removed form communication options. The chickens seem to forget old arrangement more rapidly and look for new ones while we are decidedly like elephants that can remember social interactions for decades. We can also store more relationships as chickens can maintain place in a social group made up of no more than about 30 individuals while we can do similar for literally hundreds if not more individuals. I also much catch myself not ignoring the existence of a chickens potential self-awareness as acknowledging the bird's capacity for such makes using them for my needs more difficult. Like many I keep them for eats but have also had them for other reasons that also, according to majority these days, were not in the birds self interest.

 

[asinnamon]

Thank everyone for the advice! We haven't done a darn thing yet. Hubby is trying to psyche himself up to 'do the deed'. We would never make it as self sufficient farmers, lol! We would starve.

 

[TerrytheMarsRover]

I've posted a couple times about our rooster problem. We still have them all, 3 roos to 9 hens and the roos are still over sexing our hens. We are so torn on which rooster(s) to invite to dinner!! We would never make it as farmers!

If we get rid of all three roos, will the hens miss them? Will they accept a new roo?

Thx!

My hens have done very well with transitioning roosters. However when the rooster died my hens did experience grief but moved on the next day. I don’t know if they did well with the transition because the hens were in a crowded pen before and they grieved over my rooster, Candy, because there were only 4 of them. I think if you have many chickens they will not get as attached to the rooster but if you have a few chickens, they will get more attached to the rooster, making it harder to move on. I still feel my chickens grieve over my rooster a month later though. Therefore I think it depends on how many hens you have. Hope this helped :>