Buncha questions

[familypendragon]

So #1 is it normal for one rooster to mate with another rooster to "put him in his place"?

#2 Is it normal for a grown rooster to try to mount a 4 week old chick? I have kicked him out of the juvie coop - but just wondering if that is typical?

#3 My 2 year old disobeyed me and went into the coop, got the eggs, and then cracked them in the feeder and fed them shells and all to the chickens while I was in the other coop taking care of business. Am I now going to have to worry about egg eaters?

Thank you

 

[sumi]

To be honest, though I've seen my roosters fight and fight badly, I've never seen one try to mate with another one. I know hens may sometimes mount other hens in a display of dominance, in the absence of a rooster.

Grown roosters trying to mount chicks is not normal and definitely not o.k. He could seriously injure or kill the chick!

They may, but I've had hens eat eggs accidentally broken in the nest box or dropped by us when we collected them and I've had very little problems with egg eaters. I doubt a once off experience will trigger an egg eating frenzy, but you never know with chickens. In case you need it here is some tips on breaking egg eaters:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/six-tips-on-breaking-your-egg-eater

 

[familypendragon]

To be honest, though I've seen my roosters fight and fight badly, I've never seen one try to mate with another one. I know hens may sometimes mount other hens in a display of dominance, in the absence of a rooster.

Grown roosters trying to mount chicks is not normal and definitely not o.k. He could seriously injure or kill the chick! 

They may, but I've had hens eat eggs accidentally broken in the nest box or dropped by us when we collected them and I've had very little problems with egg eaters. I doubt a once off experience will trigger an egg eating frenzy, but you never know with chickens. In case you need it here is some tips on breaking egg eaters:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/six-tips-on-breaking-your-egg-eater

Thanks, what happened is that I have 3 roos. At first the Lav Ameraucana when brought in fought with the established Cuckoo Marans roo. I took the CM out and into the "time out" coop. He eventually accepted he was no longer the Alpha male and gets along fine. I have a RIR roo that I kept temporarily in the juvie pen so as not to introduce another roo too fast. I saw him trying to mount the poor baby and jerked him off of her. I went to go move him to the time out pen and the CM followed. I was like, OK what ever. Then a second later I hear an awful noise and the CM was going to town on the RIR, repeatedly till finally he just laid down in the corner and acted submissive. And yeah, the CM definitely completed the act :/ So it served the purpose of putting him in his place apparently and he has behaved himself now. But I don't let him into the juvie pen any more. But anytime he start to get attitude the CM chases him down and does it again. So its definitely a dominance thing.

Good to know about the egg eating!

 

[sumi]

Goodness, rooster fights for dominance is not for the faint hearted! I had several roosters in my flock years ago and the second in command occasionally challenged the top rooster for his position. They managed to fight it out civilly at first, but they got to a point eventually where my top rooster got injured, so I rehomed the second in command. It just got too much and I was worried that they'd end up killing each other. It is better to keep roosters separate or make sure they have enough space and hens to allow them to sort out their pecking order and stay off each other's turf. Otherwise things can get nasty quick and the hens may suffer too. Good luck with your roosters and fingers crossed they will sort themselves out soon. (And keep them away from the chicks! LOL)

 

[familypendragon]

Goodness, rooster fights for dominance is not for the faint hearted! I had several roosters in my flock years ago and the second in command occasionally challenged the top rooster for his position. They managed to fight it out civilly at first, but they got to a point eventually where my top rooster got injured, so I rehomed the second in command. It just got too much and I was worried that they'd end up killing each other. It is better to keep roosters separate or make sure they have enough space and hens to allow them to sort out their pecking order and stay off each other's turf. Otherwise things can get nasty quick and the hens may suffer too. Good luck with your roosters and fingers crossed they will sort themselves out soon. (And keep them away from the chicks! LOL)

Yeah, they should be ok. For now they are free ranging on (theoretically) 3 1/2 acres - though they rarely venture more than 100 feet from their coops with the exception of Riker the RIR. He ventures alone about an acre back. In about 6 months I will be building separate pens for them all by breed and then leaving one flock of mutts to free range and provide eating eggs. At least that is the plan, LOL! All together right now there are 34 chickens and 3 are the adult roos and there is one (we think) BO roo that is about 14 weeks old. I have a bunch of chicks on the way and will have one rooster of each breed. And then there is the full bator... LOL! All told in about 6 months I will have somewhere just shy of 100 birds I think with around 15 roos.