Do roosters get mean as they age?

[flickerfarkle]

The hens in my most productive cage are so beat-up, I moved the rooster into a hospital cage and I might retire him.

They're all about nine days from being a year old. I keep five hens and a roo in this particular cage, and he's always been pretty rough on the hens. In the last week they all look like the roo has really been brutal. All five have a bald spot on the back of their heads and most of the feathers are gone from their flanks. I've seen him chasing them around like it was a track meet, pouncing on one hen for just a second, then going after another. And the hens all running in a panic.

Their eggs have gone funny in the last few days, too. They're usually brown speckled but some of them have been smoky colored, and I had one egg today that was solid white and very teardrop shaped.

I took that as a sign of distress from the hens so I moved the roo to isolation to give them some relief. I've got a few five week old roos in a brooding cage that were due to go in the freezer in a week but now I'm thinking one of them will get a reprieve and the old rooster will take his place in the freezer.

Have you ever had one get too mean for his own good as it aged? Which to me means there's no cure for this condition except pull, pluck and pan.

 

[Quailwhatdoyaknow]

Sounds like he is really overbreeding them. I’d recommend either removing him and let him live out his days or let him go to the freezer. If you’re not needing him for fertilized eggs, the hens don’t need a roo to lay. I had a roo literally peck a hole in the side of one of my hens head and I removed him quickly. Since doing so they are so much happier and don’t have near the stress that he caused.

 

[Nabiki]

In my experience, they actually get mellower as they age, but it sounds like you have a mean one. I would definitely retire him.

As for the weird eggs, it could be stress, but it could also be diet. What are you feeding them? Are they getting enough calcium?

 

[flickerfarkle]

...Since doing so they are so much happier and don’t have near the stress that he caused.

I hatched my first quail on June the 9th of last year so I'm not exactly an "old hand" at this but from the start I figured it was good policy to not make hens have to put up with a roo living among them if there was no reason to. Not because I anticipated that my birds were going to be on the rough side but because their mating habits aren't particularly gentle.

So I've always sexed my birds as soon their sex can be determined. That's also why I bought into this particular line of birds (originally from James Marie farms), because they're feather-sexable at 21 days.

I keep a "hens-only" cage, for the egg production and to have replacements in case of die-offs in the breeding cages. And die-offs are much rarer in the hens-only cages than in the breeding cages, despite their cages are only a foot apart and I treat them all exactly the same.

That said, the cage with the rough rooster has consistently given me my best hatch rates, sometimes better than 80%.

 

[flickerfarkle]

...What are you feeding them? Are they getting enough calcium?

Mostly I feed them burgers and fries. Once a week they get pizza.

All seriousness aside, I feed them a blend of 80% (four parts) Dumor 16% layer crumble (for calcium) and 20% (one part) Kalmbach 28% turkey starter (for a dash of extra protein), same as they've been eating the for last 45 weeks weeks. I don't keep a ledger of egg production but they definitely beat the 300 eggs/year guesstimate. I rarely see discolored eggs unless I've just added a new hen or there's trouble in tiny town.

In my experience, they actually get mellower as they age,...

That what I figgered. That's his death sentence rat thar. Fortunately I'm brooding a few that will come six weeks old next week, so his replacement is already in the on-deck circle. And I think my cages are large enough to accommodate it so I think I'm going to raise the ratio to six hens per roo to spread out the damage.