Cockerels. Make or break behaviors to thin out selection?

[PhantomSlayer]

We have 10 pullets ranging from 10 weeks to 16 weeks. Two barred rock cockerels 15 weeks old and a 10 week old cockerel easter egger.

10 pullets isn't alot for 2 let alone 3 roosters so I want to know what are things to keep an eye out to eliminate a bad rooster trait. I know they say you wont know till a year old. Our original plan was to keep the easter egger cockerel. But with 2 other options who knows.. Plus he may not even make a good rooster. We do want to keep 1 rooster for sure but if theres another with desireable traits we may keep him around and try to see which makes the better rooster once they get older. Unless problems arise then we'll have to make that difficult choice


On the other hand it sorta makes sense why 4 out of 11 pullets only stuck around our easter egger cockerel lol. Unfortunately we lost one of the 4 to a fox not to long ago..

 

[Ridgerunner]

What are your goals with a rooster? Why do you want one around? It's easier to make a selection if you know what you are selecting for. I typically raise 20 to 25 cockerels each year and keep one to be my breeding rooster the following year. One of my goals is to play with genetics, another is to raise chickens to eat. I can usually get down to the best two or three without too much trouble since I know what I am selecting for. Your situation may not be that straightforward.

It is hard to select for behaviors at that age. Not only do their behaviors change as they grow they can suppress or enforce each other's behaviors. A wild out of control juvenile can calm down into a great rooster when he matures, if you can get through that phase. One of my rejection criteria is brutality. I understand they are going through puberty and will decide which is boss but a will to kill is a strike against them.

I you want to hatch chicks, what do you want the chicks to be like. That can be colors or patterns but also behaviors. I don't know what pullets you have but the Barred Rock males tend to father chicks that look like BR. I have no idea what your EE looks like.

 

[Mrs. K]

I cull in batches, not all at once. Removing some helps me see the birds remaining, and it changes their demeanor, when the competition is reduced.

So first cut, - anything I don't like for any reason. Get those birds out of the way.

2nd cut - wait a couple of weeks and see. How do the hens act? Is he giving me space? This is a good time to really examine your birds. Weigh them, I am assuming you are feeding them the same, heavier birds are better doers, a good thing in a flock. REALLY examine their alignment - there beaks need to be straight, their toes and feet need to be straight. Feel their breast bones. Make your decsion.

Then wait a little while again, and by this time, some better birds are becoming more apparent.

HOWEVER, do know, none of the three might turn out. Cockerels are a crap shoot. Do know that some people really struggle to cull birds. And if you hatch - well 50% are going to be cockerels (at least). You will be back at this problem.

Mrs K

 

[PhantomSlayer]

What are your goals with a rooster? Why do you want one around? It's easier to make a selection if you know what you are selecting for. I typically raise 20 to 25 cockerels each year and keep one to be my breeding rooster the following year. One of my goals is to play with genetics, another is to raise chickens to eat. I can usually get down to the best two or three without too much trouble since I know what I am selecting for. Your situation may not be that straightforward.

It is hard to select for behaviors at that age. Not only do their behaviors change as they grow they can suppress or enforce each other's behaviors. A wild out of control juvenile can calm down into a great rooster when he matures, if you can get through that phase. One of my rejection criteria is brutality. I understand they are going through puberty and will decide which is boss but a will to kill is a strike against them.

I you want to hatch chicks, what do you want the chicks to be like. That can be colors or patterns but also behaviors. I don't know what pullets you have but the Barred Rock males tend to father chicks that look like BR. I have no idea what your EE looks like.

Overall reason for having chickens for us is eggs mainly but also meat birds later on.

Immediate reason for having a rooster would be protection. But I personally would want to see what comes out of the crosses since we have a mixed flock. We have gold lace wyandottes, buff orpington, black australorps, a brahma and an easter egger pullets.

We may later on get some other breeds and colorings. So yeah probably next year I'll be looking forward to maybe hatching some chicks.

We can't have one that gets aggressive toward us though. We have a child in the household. Plus nieces and nephew who visits. One niece in particular loves holding our catchable chickens and one of our geese.

I'm so far looking for food aggression signs from the cockerels. The EE cockerel seems fine when eating around the 3 pullets that have been with him since birth. Which are the brahma, EE and our runt Australorp. They don't really come to treat calls like the rest of the flock. I think theres high chance of keeping him. But still if he starts showing human aggression thats going to really suck. The the main worry is human aggression. Also aggression to the rest of the flock. My moms so far talking about the green tag barred rock being the one to go. But I want to watch them as long as possible to choose.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Immediate reason for having a rooster would be protection.

What benefit, if any, purely depends on the individual. It has nothing to do with breed. I don't know any way to judge that until you have a crisis.

But I personally would want to see what comes out of the crosses since we have a mixed flock. We have gold lace wyandottes, buff orpington, black australorps, a brahma and an easter egger pullets.

A Brahma or EE can be different colors and patterns, I have no idea what will happen with those crosses, either a barred rock male with those pullets or the EE male with any pullets. With a BR male over your GLW, BO, or BA you should get chicks that look like the barred rock though especially with the BO you could get a fair amount of yellow or even orange leakage. Leakage is where various feathers can come in as random colors. It is pretty common.

We can't have one that gets aggressive toward us though. We have a child in the household. Plus nieces and nephew who visits.

I think a majority of us that have roosters and experience agree that a human aggressive rooster needs to go. Some people with a special breeding project may keep an aggressive rooster for the genetics and you get a few that seem to value chickens above people but most of us will agree that a human aggressive rooster needs to go immediately.

One niece in particular loves holding our catchable chickens and one of our geese.

One of the rooster's jobs is to protect his flock. Some are a lot better at that than others. Several years back a thread on this forum was about a 5 year old boy that really enjoyed chasing the hens. It was really cute until the rooster started attacking that boy wherever he saw him, even from way across the yard. That rooster went from being a great rooster to human aggressive immediately targeting that boy and had to be removed. Some roosters are OK with humans handling the hens and they should be. But if the hen protests they can switch immediately. Lots of people have flocks where their kids hold the hens and it works great but sometimes it doesn't go as planned.

Also aggression to the rest of the flock.

You have immature cockerels. I don't know how they are interacting with the pullets now. When under the influence of the hormones of puberty the boys typically want to mate with the girls. The girls are also immature, they do not want to mate so they typically run away or resist. The boys often force them. As long as no one is being injured I accept this as part of them going through puberty but it can be pretty vicious and hard to watch. A lot of cockerels literally lose their heads and become dinner at this phase, it can be very hard to watch. Typically when the boys and girls grow up all this mellows and you get a nice peaceful flock but occasionally you get a boy that never matures or a girl that will never accept any male. I never have but some people get girls that are injured.

When you say aggression to the rest of the flock I assume you mean the other boys. The boys will determine which one is the dominant flock master. Sometimes this is very peaceful, you don't notice much. But sometimes it is pretty vicious and can be a fight to the death. A good rooster or even cockerel should never bother chicks but once the male chicks become old enough to become rivals things can change.

Lots of people keep roosters with the flock without any of these problems. I grew up on a farm with a free ranging flock of chickens, including a rooster and with chicks going through the juvenile phase without issues. It can and does happen. But there are also risks, it doesn't always go peacefully.

To use someone else's phrase I consider which male to keep a crap shoot. You do the best you can and it often works out fine. But it can turn on a dime and you have to be willing to take whatever steps are needed.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

What benefit, if any, purely depends on the individual. It has nothing to do with breed. I don't know any way to judge that until you have a crisis.


A Brahma or EE can be different colors and patterns, I have no idea what will happen with those crosses, either a barred rock male with those pullets or the EE male with any pullets. With a BR male over your GLW, BO, or BA you should get chicks that look like the barred rock though especially with the BO you could get a fair amount of yellow or even orange leakage. Leakage is where various feathers can come in as random colors. It is pretty common.


I think a majority of us that have roosters and experience agree that a human aggressive rooster needs to go. Some people with a special breeding project may keep an aggressive rooster for the genetics and you get a few that seem to value chickens above people but most of us will agree that a human aggressive rooster needs to go immediately.


One of the rooster's jobs is to protect his flock. Some are a lot better at that than others. Several years back a thread on this forum was about a 5 year old boy that really enjoyed chasing the hens. It was really cute until the rooster started attacking that boy wherever he saw him, even from way across the yard. That rooster went from being a great rooster to human aggressive immediately targeting that boy and had to be removed. Some roosters are OK with humans handling the hens and they should be. But if the hen protests they can switch immediately. Lots of people have flocks where their kids hold the hens and it works great but sometimes it doesn't go as planned.


You have immature cockerels. I don't know how they are interacting with the pullets now. When under the influence of the hormones of puberty the boys typically want to mate with the girls. The girls are also immature, they do not want to mate so they typically run away or resist. The boys often force them. As long as no one is being injured I accept this as part of them going through puberty but it can be pretty vicious and hard to watch. A lot of cockerels literally lose their heads and become dinner at this phase, it can be very hard to watch. Typically when the boys and girls grow up all this mellows and you get a nice peaceful flock but occasionally you get a boy that never matures or a girl that will never accept any male. I never have but some people get girls that are injured.

When you say aggression to the rest of the flock I assume you mean the other boys. The boys will determine which one is the dominant flock master. Sometimes this is very peaceful, you don't notice much. But sometimes it is pretty vicious and can be a fight to the death. A good rooster or even cockerel should never bother chicks but once the male chicks become old enough to become rivals things can change.

Lots of people keep roosters with the flock without any of these problems. I grew up on a farm with a free ranging flock of chickens, including a rooster and with chicks going through the juvenile phase without issues. It can and does happen. But there are also risks, it doesn't always go peacefully.

To use someone else's phrase I consider which male to keep a crap shoot. You do the best you can and it often works out fine. But it can turn on a dime and you have to be willing to take whatever steps are needed.

Everything you have said is very useful thank you

 

[Folly's place]

I agree with everything already mentioned, and the only point I'd make concerns one of your goals, raising birds for meat. That would be your biggest meatiest cockerel, if you have one. Many hatchery Barred Rocks have been bred for egg production, and are smaller than the breed standard. See how your cockerels develop, and consider cockerels of different breeding next year.
Mary

 

[PhantomSlayer]

I agree with everything already mentioned, and the only point I'd make concerns one of your goals, raising birds for meat. That would be your biggest meatiest cockerel, if you have one. Many hatchery Barred Rocks have been bred for egg production, and are smaller than the breed standard. See how your cockerels develop, and consider cockerels of different breeding next year.
Mary

The main goal is eggs. Meat bird is more of like. Unwanted roosters or hens that arn't worth keeping due to personality or poor egg production. Were not going to be culling alot just whatever we can't rehome or isn't worth keeping due to reasons.

The green tagged barred rock cockerel has my mother angry. He pulled some of her male goose feathers and seems to be slowly going after more of the pullets when getting treats. My dads friend said he would take whatever rooster we don't want for his freezer.

I kinda feel bad but I knew from the get go that eventually we would come to the issue of needing to have some become ours or someones food. It just came sooner because we werent given pullets like we wanted lol.


I've been watching the EE cockerel and hes actually kinda funny to watch. They were eating treats yesterday and he was with the EE pullet and the brahma. While the pullets were picking up food he would look like he was going to steal what they picked up but then he moved and picked up his own. I've also seen him go running up to a pullet and stand up tall and fluff up and when the pullet does the same hes usually the first to back down and go away. Just wish he would stay off the picnic table though lol. He and his trio of pullets tend to get up there while we dont have any issues with the others doing it.

Just really hoping he doesn't turn out like his father. His father is my brother and sister in laws rooster and hes now 2 years old and getting more aggressive toward humans so their trying to get rid of him as well.

I guess thats the crap shoot on roosters though lol.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

[MomvdH]

Can I join in on this thread? All the above has been helpful in thinking through our situation. But I’m still unsure. We got 8 barnyard mix chicks in April. 4 turned out to be roosters. We were able to rehome 3, and kept our favorite from Chickhood. He is a marans of some sort, black copper or midnight mystic…and I really wanted a marans for dark eggs, so even though he’ll never lay an egg, he still might give us a chick one day, who would. We never planned to hatch our own, but goodness the deeper you go into chickens, the more you read, well, yes, chicken math indeed.

So anyway, we have this 5 month old marans cockerel. He is big. And beautiful. He crows a lot, appears very watchful and alert. Has not been human aggressive yet, and the remaining 4 hens seem fine, unharmed, peaceful. The helpful question of WHY keep a rooster made me thing why would we keep him?

We don’t free range, so not really for safety.
He definitely gets them in the coop each night…early! Then guards the door. We have an auto door, but he’s standing in the opening till it closes each night. Would they go in anyway, without him? I don’t know.
I don’t know things like…does he keep them peaceful?
Our coop is securel but if anything DID get in, or come near, I know he’d sound the alarm. Would they be ok without him?

I would hate to give him away, then find they all really do need him.

He doesn’t seem overly rough in mating, yet they are young, and usually yell anyway. Right now there are only 4 hens to one rooster. I know that’s not enough, so we have 4 more chicks in the brooder. From a hatchery, so hopefully the pullets I ordered. Someone said a rooster won’t bother chicks…..I’m nervous when it comes time to add the new ones in….typically will roosters be ok with a new batch coming in? Im sure it varies, obviously, but in general? He’s just not shown aggression to the others, or people, yet.

I am always on guard around him, I’ve even started carrying our small rake, just in case, but so far, he looks at me, or my daughter, and carries on eating or scratching or guarding the borders.

so Anyway, if you didnt free range, and the coop was safe, are there still good benefits to give one rooster a chance to stay? And anything else to be watch full of? Sorry this was so long.

 

[Folly's place]

I do love having roosters! Only polite ones, jerks don't need to be here, they should be someone's dinner. Do you need your cockerel? No, but why not keep him, as long as he's a nice guy.
If he continues to be good, that's wonderful, and if not, you can see what behaviors will tip you off the the next cockerel, before things get out of hand.
And, hatching eggs in the future will mean at least half cockerels, so be prepared to deal with multiples in the future.
Mary