orchardflock
Chirping
- Apr 25, 2017
- 99
- 43
- 51
We have two flocks, a bantam flock with 2 roosters and 7 pullets, and a regular flock with 1 rooster, 5 hens and 5 pullets. The 3 roosters and pullets are about 15 weeks old. We are trying to decide what to do with the roosters.
Blackson is a golden seabright and started crowing at about 8 weeks. He's clearly the dominant of the two bantam roosters and he takes good care of his hens, calling them over to eat first and sheparding them into their coop if there is any danger or something goes wrong. He's started mating with the hens, but seems fairly gentle. Our kids can easily handle him and he has never shown any aggressive behavior. We got the bantams for 4-H and he doesn't seem show worthy, but he's neat to look at though and watch.
The second bantam rooster is a silver pencil rock named Heyhey. He's not nearly as attractive as our other two roosters, but maybe he'll get better? He started crowing a few days ago, and also started to try and mate with the hens. There is a tremendous amount of squawking every time he tries and this morning we found a bloody spot on the head of one of our little hens after he mounted her and she screamed. We separated him out for now, but we can't leave him out of the yard over night if we don't want him to get eaten. This is my first time having roosters, so I'm not sure if this is just normal behavior he will outgrow. Pretty much the only advantage of keeping him currently is that if we wanted to have bantam chicks, having rock chicks would make it more likely we would get better egg layers and potential meals than a golden seabright.
Rooster #3 is an Aquila named Ebony. He's also 15 weeks old. About 2 weeks ago he injured his leg somehow, and was barely walking. He seems to be slowly recovering now, but stopped crowing when he got hurt and hasn't resumed. What we really wanted was an Easter Egger rooster, but Ebony is very friendly and (at least when healthy) a beautiful bird. We're inclined to keep him unless he continues to act sickly. And then I'm not sure what we will do with him - we wouldn't want to eat him. We want chicks, but Easter Egger chicks would be better.
Blackson is a golden seabright and started crowing at about 8 weeks. He's clearly the dominant of the two bantam roosters and he takes good care of his hens, calling them over to eat first and sheparding them into their coop if there is any danger or something goes wrong. He's started mating with the hens, but seems fairly gentle. Our kids can easily handle him and he has never shown any aggressive behavior. We got the bantams for 4-H and he doesn't seem show worthy, but he's neat to look at though and watch.
The second bantam rooster is a silver pencil rock named Heyhey. He's not nearly as attractive as our other two roosters, but maybe he'll get better? He started crowing a few days ago, and also started to try and mate with the hens. There is a tremendous amount of squawking every time he tries and this morning we found a bloody spot on the head of one of our little hens after he mounted her and she screamed. We separated him out for now, but we can't leave him out of the yard over night if we don't want him to get eaten. This is my first time having roosters, so I'm not sure if this is just normal behavior he will outgrow. Pretty much the only advantage of keeping him currently is that if we wanted to have bantam chicks, having rock chicks would make it more likely we would get better egg layers and potential meals than a golden seabright.
Rooster #3 is an Aquila named Ebony. He's also 15 weeks old. About 2 weeks ago he injured his leg somehow, and was barely walking. He seems to be slowly recovering now, but stopped crowing when he got hurt and hasn't resumed. What we really wanted was an Easter Egger rooster, but Ebony is very friendly and (at least when healthy) a beautiful bird. We're inclined to keep him unless he continues to act sickly. And then I'm not sure what we will do with him - we wouldn't want to eat him. We want chicks, but Easter Egger chicks would be better.
