My flock of interest seems to change range size as follows. When feeders are kept full with lots of sunflower seeds, range (outlined in yellow) is contracted around feeder and cover. Blue rectangle represents house, red-cross roost, yellow circle feeder site and brown outlined area cover / day roost.
When sunflower seeds withheld or feeders empty, the range expands along particular routes. It is always associated with short grass and fencerow or heavy waist to shoulder high vegetation which occur along gravel roadways.
Flocks above based on juveniles beyond age where they would be tended by hen. Normally, they would still associate with cock and non-broody hens of natal group.
Social groupings of my birds when made of adult games include a cock, hens and usually a couple stags that operate at periphery of group. Not a pride since cock does all defending. Hens drop out of groupings when broody but do interact with cock at least once during day. When only a single hen in cocks flock, he stays with her during daylight even if she is brooding chicks. The cock will chase stags if they approach hens too closely.
My games flock tighter when pressured by predators. Some game strains may differ in respect to social structure. I have no personal experience with the heavy game breeds but neighbors birds were much less sociable, even the hens.
The cocks will engage avian predators going after his hens and chicks but he will generally not do so from an exposed position or when foe is above. Predators (red-tails and Coopers hawks) he engages are smaller than he is. I doubt even my bravest cock would engage a goshawk, that would be suicidal. Stags and non-broody hens seem to make no effort to engage predators.
Dominiques I have hopefully have minimal recent Asian influence. I do not know how they will respond to predators. So far they seem on the stupid side and cannot fly well enough to escape predators even when pressed to do so.
When sunflower seeds withheld or feeders empty, the range expands along particular routes. It is always associated with short grass and fencerow or heavy waist to shoulder high vegetation which occur along gravel roadways.
Flocks above based on juveniles beyond age where they would be tended by hen. Normally, they would still associate with cock and non-broody hens of natal group.
Social groupings of my birds when made of adult games include a cock, hens and usually a couple stags that operate at periphery of group. Not a pride since cock does all defending. Hens drop out of groupings when broody but do interact with cock at least once during day. When only a single hen in cocks flock, he stays with her during daylight even if she is brooding chicks. The cock will chase stags if they approach hens too closely.
My games flock tighter when pressured by predators. Some game strains may differ in respect to social structure. I have no personal experience with the heavy game breeds but neighbors birds were much less sociable, even the hens.
The cocks will engage avian predators going after his hens and chicks but he will generally not do so from an exposed position or when foe is above. Predators (red-tails and Coopers hawks) he engages are smaller than he is. I doubt even my bravest cock would engage a goshawk, that would be suicidal. Stags and non-broody hens seem to make no effort to engage predators.
Dominiques I have hopefully have minimal recent Asian influence. I do not know how they will respond to predators. So far they seem on the stupid side and cannot fly well enough to escape predators even when pressed to do so.
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