First time raising chickens

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Siletz Rhino

Siletz Rhino

Hatching
5 Years
May 11, 2014
3
0
7
Well, I've been stalking the BYC website for a couple months now and decided to go for it. we got 6 Buff Orpington chicks from the local feed store about 4 weeks ago and I have been in the process of building a tractor with my boys. The chicks are doing great and it looks like I am going to have one rooster. The tractor turned out really nice. the personality of the BO's is quite entertaining. we have had some really nice weather lately so they have been in the yard supervised. My dog Pepper even spent some time with them and did really good. I am looking forward to the rest of the summer out in the yard with the family and our new pets.

My boys and the new chicks


Under construction. I looked at tractors on BYC and liked this style the best. it started out as a frame on the floor and was designed as it was being built.


Nesting boc


Painted, just needs roofing, wire and of course chickens.


the chicks in the new home. they lived in my shop in the tractor for about a week because they were getting really loud in the house. now they are outside but still have the light on for them at night.

pepper inspecting her new family members.


My suspected roo.


The boys and the girls.
 
Nice coop and your kids look like they are having a ball! Beautiful little chicks too! You do have a cockerel there from what I can tell.

From my experience it is best not to hold your cockerel/coddle him unless you need to do a procedure to him like dusting for mites. You want him to respect you - roosters can be dangerous with children (careful about their eyes). So if you treat him like a hen, when he gets large and powerful he may think you need to be under him in the pecking order. He may try to flog you to show you that he is top.

I would not allow your children to do the chicken chores alone when he grows up. He may be a perfectly calm and peaceful rooster but even when a rooster is a couple of years old, he can turn on you in an instant and attack/try to flog you. When this happens to a child, the child's eyes/face may be injured. I have had my youngest child attacked by one of our roosters years ago and it drew blood. I wanted to warn you so you can watch out for your beautiful boys. We had to put him down because he was so scary and was attacking me too.

To make friends with your rooster, offer him treats, treats, and more treats as time goes by!!! Chickens LOVE treats and if you are the treat dispenser then that is good.

There are many, many nice roosters out there- hopefully yours is a good one.
welcome-byc.gif
 
Hi, and welcome to BYC!
Enjoy your new chickens!
I think the chick in question is a cockerel.
In my experience, roosters tend to be flightier than hens, and hens will more readily come up to people than roosters will.
Can anyone else concur with me on that observation?
 
Thanks for the information. it will be quite useful with us being new to this and everything. I live in town so once the cockerel starts getting noisy or aggressive in any way he will not be around any more. Thanks
 

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