Curious about rooster behavior

[taurusladee]

I have been watching our roosters and trying to figure out their calls. I am pretty sure I figured out what they do when a "predator" is near, last night there were crows flying overhead and at first they were VERY loud and chased the hens into our treeline then continued to pace around the yard taking turns making the same sounds. Pretty sure they realized after bit that it was crows and not the resident hawks and I watched them go back in the treeline....making a completely different sound and the girls followed them out. I am guessing that this was them doing "their" job in protecting our flock. I have seen them do something similar when a strange cat is in the yard.

I find it fascinating watching them! I watched one of our roosters pick up a piece of bread that it found and walked over to a group of four hens and literally threw it by them and then pranced around keeping the other birds away while those four ate it!

I was just curious what type of behaviors everyone has taken notice of !

 

[cavemanrich]

Your rooster is a winner. A protector. And a ladies roo. when he gave them the bread. Who knows........ maybe in a previous life he owned a restaurant.

...

But in reality. the higher the life form, the better the communication among them.

 

[jacilee]

My birds see or hear a hawk and they all run out to look at it. Yep, the big protector roo runs out calling the girls to look at the huge bird god flying overhead.

Mercifully the hawks don't ever seem to look at my birds, it could be that my birds are as big as the hawks around here and were adults when we put them out, I hope anyway. So far we have not lost any birds so I am happy.

I love the sound my rooster makes calling his girls to eat some of the goodie he found, it is adorable.

I finally got my rooster to eat out of my hand, he never would before he got sick, I wanted him to but he would always call a girl to come and eat it. Awwww that is sweet actually even if to them it is instinct. I nursed them all back to health and while they are still not responding to my chicken whistle

I remain hopeful that one day they will.

 

[jacilee]

I agree, it annoys me when people say animals are stupid. Just because they don't speak or do the things we do doesn't make them stupid. My chickens talk to each other all the time and keep tabs on who is where.

 

[taurusladee]

I had one bird that is usually the last one in at night, she almost seems to fall asleep by the actual door to go inside our coop. We have three roosters and Saturday, she was sitting there all huddled up and all three of them came out at the same time and woke her up and worked together to get her to go around and go inside. One was "stomping" her in the right directions and the other two flanked her to make sure she went the right way.

I find it funny when a plane flies over head and you see the birds scatter! LOL We have luckily not had any issue with hawks..they have swooped down and I've seen them sitting on top of the fence around our coop but they never go in. We have 24 birds so I'm not sure if it could be strength in numbers or what....

It completely cracks me up how my husbands "little chicken project" has brought me so much enjoyment!