Catching a wild rooster

[Mac14]

Wow. Hopefully you can get him out of there soon. Even if he goes to a sanctuary, he doesn't seem like a rooster they could keep around. Have you heard of him trying to attack people? (If you did hear that, you would have already told us. Haha!) Maybe something happened when he was young that made him go wacky, or it might be in his genes. Hopefully he will not be a problem soon. I do have to say that he is beautiful...

 

[LauraSac]

Wow. Hopefully you can get him out of there soon. Even if he goes to a sanctuary, he doesn't seem like a rooster they could keep around. Have you heard of him trying to attack people? (If you did hear that, you would have already told us. Haha!) Maybe something happened when he was young that made him go wacky, or it might be in his genes. Hopefully he will not be a problem soon. I do have to say that he is beautiful...

I've never heard of him being aggressive with people at all. One of the sanctuaries does a lot of rescue, often from factory farms when they close, but also farm animals who have been abused, neglected or injured and would otherwise be killed (even for meat). Knowing them, they'd give him his own pad.

The SPCA takes a lot of their rescue hens, but they keep animals for their whole lives at a couple different locations. They never euthanize an animal, except for illness. They even do home visits if you want to adopt one of their animals. I had considered adopting one of their rescued battery hens, but thought that was a bit much.

 

[lightchick]

I've never heard of him being aggressive with people at all. One of the sanctuaries does a lot of rescue, often from factory farms when they close, but also farm animals who have been abused, neglected or injured and would otherwise be killed (even for meat). Knowing them, they'd give him his own pad.

The SPCA takes a lot of their rescue hens, but they keep animals for their whole lives at a couple different locations. They never euthanize an animal, except for illness. They even do home visits if you want to adopt one of their animals. I had considered adopting one of their rescued battery hens, but thought that was a bit much.

Have you guys gotten a trap up yet?

 

[LauraSac]

Have you guys gotten a trap up yet?

No, I don't think so. I think they can get one from the animal shelter. I'll check.

 

[The Lazy L]

Some people have talked about that, but really, it's up to the people whose yards he goes into. The only time you're allowed to use a pellet gun is on a nuisance animal on your own property, and he's that, but their hope is to trap him. Chickens are the only livestock allowed in city limits, but our city shelter has relationships with the farm animal sanctuaries, as well as with the local SPCA which is outside the city and adopts out chickens and goats. They've said they would find him a home if he can be trapped. I know trapping and finding a home for him probably sounds silly, but that's really the goal. A lot of work for one rooster.

I would prefer he would be take alive. I don't understand how a "find him a home" will stop his overly aggressive behavior. Shame to relocate him and only to have him continue to kill or worse take out a young child's eye.

 

[LauraSac]

I would prefer he would be take alive. I don't understand how a "find him a home" will stop his overly aggressive behavior. Shame to relocate him and only to have him continue to kill or worse take out a young child's eye.

I don't think you can make him non-aggressive, unless being around other chickens socializes him. That works with dogs who were previously abused, but not feral cats, and I'd say he's more like a feral cat. But a sanctuary on a ranch is better than a densely populated urban neighborhood. He's never been human aggressive, but one of the families that lost a hen to him has a 6 year old daughter. I'm sure that concerns them.

This is a 100+ year old neighborhood with lots of old trees, so I'm sure that's helped him, but whoever dumped him here wasn't looking out for him. We have old alleys that were used as fire lanes. They're grassy and houses are on either side. He pretty much lives there, and visits a handful of backyards, and roosts in front of a house that has a couple huge trees. It happens to be an area clustered with families who have backyard chickens, and three of them have lost their hens. He may have been here before the chickens, even. But now that he is being aggressive, nobody's free ranging their hens, even with supervision. That's not fair to the hens. Better to move one rooster to a sanctuary ranch ran by vegans than to keep everybody's pet chickens locked up. It's not perfect, but neither is doing nothing.

 

[LauraSac]

This is one of the sanctuaries near here: http://animalplace.org/. There's more than one, though, so I don't know if this is the one he would go to or not. But the city sent them a pig that they rescued (not a pot belly, but a farm pig who was roaming a neighborhood after getting mauled by a dog. Weird!). Anyway, this is what they say:

Animal Place Sanctuary, Grass Valley, California
Animal Place's permanent shelter is a northern California tourist destination spot - nestled between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, our 600-acre Grass Valley farm animal shelter is a testament to the beauty of the Sierra Foothills. Visitors are invited to tour the sanctuary on self-guided and guided farm tours. The 300 animals at our refuge are permanent residents.

Animals arrive from small and large farms, slaughterhouses, research facilities, and neglect or cruelty cases. All animals find a haven where all their needs are met and their individual quirks respected.

I'd say this rooster has some quirks.

 

[2manychkns]

I have two neighboring (acres apart) roosters who keep coming on my property and trying to lure my hens away. I have a rooster and I keep my chickens penned mostly. However, these two "wild" roosters (they keep going back to the same property at night -- a couple acres away) show up on my property every single day. I have a couple of my hens who will fly over a 7 ft fenced yard and follow the roosters around. He even had the brass to fly over into MY chicken yard and help himself to the feed for MY chickens.

I'm really tired of this seeing that he's eating my grain when he belongs to someone else and they are trying to lure my hens away!

My husband has used a pellet gun daily to "ping" them and discourage them from coming on our property when they are, but one just keeps coming back every single day. He helps himself to not only the grain for my chickens but he hops up on a patio table where I feed an outdoor cat and helps himself to that!

What can I do? The neighbors who "own" him let the roosters roam freely and if I go over there, I'll have to take an interpreter because they don't even speak English! Do I have a right to trap them and/or kill them if they are on my property? They are really becoming pests and "stinging" them with a pellet gun only makes them run away to the edge of my property only to stay there and watch until we go away and then they come back.

HELP!!!!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Yes you have the right to trap it. Personally I'd shoot it and say nothing about it merely eat the evidence. You'd want to call animal control to get permission to kill if your into doing things by the book. I don't believe there is anyplace that allows animals to roam. The owners must keep them contained.

A one pump Red Ryder type BB gun is a a minor thwack on a bird. If you want to kill don't use anything less than 880 Daisy 10 pump with lead pellet. Basically nothing less than 675 feet per second with lead pellet. Or use a long handled fishing net to catch and dispatch how you choose.

 

[2manychkns]

Thanks! We have actually been using a pellet gun, but my husband is a softy and just wants to run the rooster off and not kill him. The problem is that one of the roosters will NOT be run off! We have maybe shot this rooster at least 10 times in the last 3 days!!!!!

I don't know what these roosters are but they are extremely wiley and FAST! They are able to fly over 7 ft fences and they are hard to shoot (at least for me -- hubby is quite good and pegs them every time).

I have never encountered chickens that are so fast and wild. Last summer we had a hen and about 12 chicks that kept coming onto our property every single day. Same thing! I AM TIRED OF IT!!!

I keep my chickens under control. Although occasionally they have wandered onto neighboring property, they stay mainly on MY property and I've never had a complaint. I had a neighbor dog who killed one of my chickens who wandered, but I wasn't mad because I felt that was the consequence of the chicken going over there!

I had an Aracauna in my coop last week who I thought was dying -- you know how they separate themselves from the others. I thought she was already dead, but when I reached to pick her up and dispose of her, she "came to life". When I put her down, she would walk around, but her head hung underneath her and it looked like her eyes had been pecked out. She had never been picked on before by any of the other hens and the only thing different was that we had started having problems with those neighbor roosters. I ended up having to kill my hen to put her out of her misery. She wouldn't have lived long after that anyway.

I just feel so frustrated that I can't even protect my own hens on my own property because of somebody else's rooster on MY property!