I let my broody hen get beat up and her clutch robbed by a surly roo
I've been keeping my two main standard breeds (marans and ameraucanas) separate to get purebred hatching eggs, and my last hatch for the year is in the incubator so I decided to amalgamate the flocks. I started slowly moving in a couple new hens at a time and everything was going great.
The ameraucana roo's been a good gentle guy these last couple of years, but this spring he started making that warning call when I was around like he thought I was danger. I was already thinking his time was just about up because I didn't want to worry about an aggressive roo.
Today I moved the few remaining marans hens and their rooster into the "summer" coop, and I left a broody marans hen in the "winter" coop. She was setting in 1 of the nest boxes and the other hens and roo hadn't bothered her at all.
I decided to take the ameraucana roo out of the coop for a couple of days to prevent dominance fights and I stupidly put him into the "winter" coop and when I went out after lunch I found .....
the broody was out of the nest and bleeding hard from her comb, him in the nest box, the eggs were cold, they were all gunked up with yolk and 2 of them had been eaten!
So I gathered up the eggs and washed them off, and put them in the bator, and then gave the broody another 14 eggs that are due to hatch this weekend.... I hope that makes up for her pain because I can just imagine how she defended those eggs! As long as switching those eggs isn't dumb move #2 today
and she's ready to be a mom after just a week of brooding....
Needless to say I no longer have a nice wheaten ameraucana roo!
I've been keeping my two main standard breeds (marans and ameraucanas) separate to get purebred hatching eggs, and my last hatch for the year is in the incubator so I decided to amalgamate the flocks. I started slowly moving in a couple new hens at a time and everything was going great.
The ameraucana roo's been a good gentle guy these last couple of years, but this spring he started making that warning call when I was around like he thought I was danger. I was already thinking his time was just about up because I didn't want to worry about an aggressive roo.
Today I moved the few remaining marans hens and their rooster into the "summer" coop, and I left a broody marans hen in the "winter" coop. She was setting in 1 of the nest boxes and the other hens and roo hadn't bothered her at all.
I decided to take the ameraucana roo out of the coop for a couple of days to prevent dominance fights and I stupidly put him into the "winter" coop and when I went out after lunch I found .....
the broody was out of the nest and bleeding hard from her comb, him in the nest box, the eggs were cold, they were all gunked up with yolk and 2 of them had been eaten!
So I gathered up the eggs and washed them off, and put them in the bator, and then gave the broody another 14 eggs that are due to hatch this weekend.... I hope that makes up for her pain because I can just imagine how she defended those eggs! As long as switching those eggs isn't dumb move #2 today
Needless to say I no longer have a nice wheaten ameraucana roo!
