Chickens bloody and fighting - Don't know this breed or what I can do about it?

zoeetal

Hatching
Dec 4, 2015
4
0
7
Hi everyone,

Does anyone know what breed this is? We have 3 of them and I just caught two of them fighting and covered in blood. And now one of them (the bloodier one) is drooping his wings. Does anyone know if that is typical of the breed or what I can do about it? This is the second or third time I've seen them covered in blood like this. If it's natural I'll leave them alone, but I'll intervene if there's something I can do about it. I enjoy my chickens less when they are in distress, fighting and bloody.

Thank you!



 
They look like old English game bantams.

You seem to have a lot of males. How many hens do you have?
 
Thanks for your replies. Yes, we have a lot of males. I'm not sure what the male to female ratio is but it's out of whack for sure. We lost a good number of our hens to raccoons and predators about a month ago. Is this the issue? We're looking for new homes for the males. What ratio is suggested?

Thanks!
 
The generally recommended ratio of roosters to hens is 1 rooster for every 10 hens, however game roosters tend to be among the more aggressive roosters so I think ViolinPlayer123's suggestion of 12 females (at least) is a very good one. Not only will the roosters fight with each other, but as they mature and their hormones kick in, too many roosters will become very hard physically on your hens, over-breeding them, biting and plucking the feathers from their necks and backs, battering them, and potentially, seriously injuring them. The only reason you really need a rooster is to fertilize eggs for hatching and 1 rooster can easily handle 10-15 hens in that regard.
 
Ok, thank you very much. We're in the process of looking to re-home our roosters. It's not that easy though. We ordered a mixed batch of chicks with no way of knowing what the ration would be. Then raccoons made it worse by reducing our hens. Is there anything I can do in the meantime to relieve the stress until we reduce their numbers? We've been letting them have the run of our 3 acres during the day to give them space but they tend to stick together anyway.

Much appreciated!
 
Ok, thank you very much. We're in the process of looking to re-home our roosters. It's not that easy though. We ordered a mixed batch of chicks with no way of knowing what the ration would be. Then raccoons made it worse by reducing our hens. Is there anything I can do in the meantime to relieve the stress until we reduce their numbers? We've been letting them have the run of our 3 acres during the day to give them space but they tend to stick together anyway.

Much appreciated!

I guess the only way i can suggest is to select one of the roos you wish to keep, and isolate the others, in separate runs. I had two brothers (3.5 months) have a real ding-dong one day and the smaller one paid the ultimate price (eventually), so separation is possibly the only way forward.

CT
 
I guess the only way i can suggest is to select one of the roos you wish to keep, and isolate the others, in separate runs. I had two brothers (3.5 months) have a real ding-dong one day and the smaller one paid the ultimate price (eventually), so separation is possibly the only way forward.

CT

X2 on CtKen's post.
 

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