If he needs a home, I could have a mellow house rooster
If he needs a home, I could have a mellow house rooster
My Blue Amer girl wasn't put down because of a broken limb - vet was treating her for something else but she was wasting away and ultimately it was a good thing to put her down. Usually if there's something not quite right about a chicken it usually will show up before 6 months old. Had a Partridge Silkie that got hobbled in loose strings from a shredding tarp. We couldn't figure out why she was hopping instead of her usual little skipping run until I saw her toes tangled in the mess and goodness Silkies have a total of 10 toes to unravel! If that had happened to an Ameraucana they would've kept struggling and flapping until they ultimately would injure themselves in panic. I've never known a more panicky breed than Amers, yet so sweet non-combative and gentle around their flockmates. We immediately remove tarps now before they show a lot of wear - the first little hole and down they come!There was never a question about keeping this one once I knew she would survive. There was a point early on when I almost put her down because I didn't think she would make it and didn't want her to suffer. She has done very well and my Grandson loves her. Once they get a coop set up she will going to live there. I think I finally figured out what caused the injury though. The secure part of the pen I between our shed and back fence. My husband had planted grapevines before we put the pen in but the one at the corner near the exit would have prevent us from fully enclosing that part of the pen so we cut it down low enough that we could get the wire in place and left the stump. I went out a few days ago to let them out of the pen and when I opened the door, everyone ran out...except on who just stood there. I looked closer to see why it had not run out and it had it's leg stuck in the deep-V where the 2 trunks of the grapevine came together and the base. Ironically...it was another blue Ameraucana that looks identical to Stubby but is much younger.....about the same ago Stubby was when she was injured. Needless to say...the grapevine was removed as soon as I freed her and she does not seem to have any lasting injury....
I would prefer him as young as I can get him just so he gets used to the dogs & cats & me but if you'd like to wait on him to make sure, I understand. Go ahead & PM me when you are ready hun, I'm sure I may not be able to find a Muscovy baby by then.
I can appreciate your assessment to a point. I no longer buy the theory that it depends on the line or strain. Over 68 years I've been around a few breeds and there are breed characteristics that are what they are. Temperaments can be slightly adjusted through selective breeding, plus other factors like space, mixture of breeds in the same flock, human handling, etc, and there will always be that one individual fluke chicken that doesn't fit the breed mold. But there are characteristics that are unmistakenly set in stone. In my experience there are the combative breeds, non-combative breeds, and some that fit in-between and can go either way. Case in point are the BRs and Doms which we've also had both. BRs are a branch off of Doms and BRs have been cross-bred with game birds, possibly Malay, and other breeds to make them more dual-purpose where the Doms have been untouched for the most part since Colonial times. The Doms are mellower than the off-shoot BRs. It's 50/50 w/BRs if the bird inherits its Dom roots or is a less gentle temperament like it's game bird ancestry. I love Leghorns but cannot keep these assertive birds in a flock of gentles breeds like Silkies, Ameraucanas, Faverolles, Polish, Houdan, etc. I speak of hen flocks as our experience with roos is extremely limited as I understand flock dynamics are different containing roos. Breeds crossed with Legs can inherit the Leg temperament characteristics and I stay away from getting breeds that have Leg history in them just to save grief. Pretty much can't go wrong with assessing the following breeds as known gentles like Ameraucana, Araucana, Brahma, Breda, Cochin, Dominique, Dorking, Easter Egger, Faverolles, Houdan, Pavlovskaja, Polish, Russian Orloff, Silkie, some Sussex, etc. But one can usually be certain of the assertive active wilder temperament of the following breeds like Fayoumi, Malay, Cornish, Gull or Braekel breeds, Marans, Mediterraneans (Legs, Andalusian, Ancona, Minorca, WFBS, Penes/Empies) and many more.
There a characteristic to a breed, but a RIR or many other breeds will have different behavior when produced by a hatchery or a real breeder. As an example flighty birds tend to be flighty no matter how they are bred and that is certainly breed characteristic. The Shamo's I raise do not get along with other chickens but hatchery Shamo's males and females can run together. They are the same breed but mine are from Asia and they have a totally different behavior. My point was that you can't lump all breeds into one catagory of behavior.
