Give me the truth about roosters

[MarlaMac]

I think you already know the answer to that one. An all female flock is a dead-end from a natural perspective.

Yep. Completely agree.

 

[MarlaMac]

As @Ridgerunner says, with living animals you do not get guarantees. I did not find this to be the case in my experience. I hatched out a cockerel from my rooster once and for a long time they got along fine. I keep a flock of 20 - 25 hens and it seemed like a good idea to have a backup for my rooster, and I thought I had plenty of hens for two. We have ten acres and they mostly free range on three of them. The cockerel began trying to put together a harem of his own and the rooster tried to prevent it. There was some sparring going on but mostly the cockerel would run away. He was sneaky about trying to lure hens away. Then one morning I came out to find the cockerel dead and that was the end of that.

One thing I do not want to encounter.

 

[MarlaMac]

That means your flock will age and egg production will drop tremendously over time unless you add sexed pullets on a regular basis. That might be your plan.


You will have 19 females that free range. No fences. That is very different from a coop with 4 square feet per chicken and 10 square feet per chicken in the run. Very similar to what Dad had except he had 25 to 30 hens and one rooster free ranging. I manage mine differently.

Some people would not have a free ranging flock without a rooster, even if they did not want fertile eggs. Others are extremely happy to have a free ranging flock without a rooster. There is a lot of personal preference in this. You are dealing with living animals, you do not know what they will do.

How does your flock behave today? Are all of them staying tightly together with the rooster or do they spread out? The 6 pullets may form a sub-flock and keep their distance, especially if they have not started laying. In Dad's flock some hens would stick pretty close to the rooster but others would really spread out, usually in small groups. Practically all of the eggs were fertile, even spread like that, but how much good will a rooster do if the hens are spread out over a half acre and a predator hits 100 feet (30 meters) away from him?

In Central Texas I'd think your main predator risks during the day would be hawks, eagles, fox, coyotes, dogs, and bobcats. You can find stories on here where a rooster fought to protect his flock, I have no doubt that can happen. What I generally saw was a rooster was much more likely to try to lead his flock to safety (or get himself out of harm's way) once a threat was identified.

Most roosters do stay fairly alert. If they see something suspicious they will warn their flock and put themselves between the flock and the threat while they check it out. This is an advantage. In a flock with no dominant rooster one hen will be dominant and will often take on some of the duties of a dominant rooster. But that does not mean she takes on all of his duties or with his skill. Some roosters do not do that good of a job of it either. With living animals you don't know what you will get.

Memories from my childhood. Dad's flock suffered two predator attacks while I was growing up that I remember. A dog showed up and killed several chickens. Dad was at work but Mom's brother was visiting. He used Dad's gun and killed the dog. Another time, a fox started picking off a hen every morning. It would wait in ambush after they were let out and take a hen. It took Dad a couple of days to recognize his pattern, then Dad was ready and shot the fox. In neither of these incidences was the rooster harmed. Nor was he a help.

This covered a period of probably 15 years before I left home. Two predator attacks in all that time. We were surrounded by pastureland and woodlands. Plenty of predators around. When I say you can go years without a predator attack or you can be wiped out overnight, this experience is what I base that on. With or without a rooster a predator could show up at any time and do serious damage. A rooster might help, he might not.

Some roosters will stop hens from fighting each other. Some. If they are spread out over a half acre how well can he manage that if he even wants to? Some roosters are very good about keeping peace in their flock. Some are really great at helping take care of chicks, whether with a broody or when the chicks are on their own. Some are not.


Typical adolescent cockerel behavior. Not all do that but many will. Once he grows out of that stage things usually settle down a lot. Some may never grow out of it. The old rooster and he may fight to the death once he matures enough. With that much room the odds are pretty good the two males will work things out but with living animals you do not get guarantees.

I don't have a recommendation for you. I hatch eggs so I need a rooster. You say you are not going to. I think they can help some but I also think they often do not help a lot. You sure do not get guarantees with them.

Thank you. Lots of good information to digest!

 

[Shadrach]

So, a long rant to ask this question: how important are roosters to a free ranging flock? If I do not replace Rooster when his time is up, what will change in the flock dynamics? Will a hen rise up to be the flock manager? Will there be more squawking and bickering among the hens (Rooster does not put up with that right now)? Will they be more susceptible to predators?

Important for who?
If the hens get a say in it I would say it's very important to have a mixed sex group. After all, their purpose in life is to reproduce.
Most hens like their roosters. It's usually the keeper who has other ideas of how nature should be managed and the vast majority of the time that management is based on their feelings and their wants. I would be well pissed off if some higher being decided to do away with women because they thought they were more trouble than they were worth.

Fully ranged chickens such as you have are live in a complex social structure. The full ranging makes it more complex because the experience potential is far greater than in say a fully confined group. These experience tend to widen the groups knowledge base and this in turn improves their chances of survival.

Life is not a bed of roses for us or them. I believe it's meant to be like that. The easier life gets, the lazier and less adventurous we and they get.
I've had twenty plus years of free ranging and day ranging mixed sex groups, usually with multiple roosters and cockerels. In the last four years I've cared for what were primarily a coop and run kept group which when I took over became at least a ranging group for two or three hours a day.
A few weeks ago the current groups rooster of the last nine years died and I was left with only hens.

They miss their rooster. I miss him to. Their behaviour has changed. The most alarming change is the hens are now treating me as their rooster. That alone should signal there is something awfully wrong going on. I can't do the stuff a rooster does; none of it. I couldn't do it even if I was with them 24/7.

On the occasions that a group, or tribe as I see them lost their rooster and had no male to take that place a senior hen has taken on the role. In a small tribe the hierarchy settles down quite quickly; in larger tribes the bickering seemed endless. The telling point was, when a male did make advances and attempted courting, the hens were a pushover. Sometimes the most senior hen of the group would seem to resent her loss of status, but even the most independent and experienced hen came round eventually.

Adjust your view. Let them breed and reproduce. Most people with the amount of land you have are farmers of one sort or another, so farm your chickens. Most are happy to eat the fertile eggs so extend this to eating the chickens and let them breed the replacements.
I don't see this as cruel at all. If we want to keep other live creatures as livestock in any shape or form then provide them with the best possible living conditions and make their deaths when you need to harvest some quick and painless.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

...My real question in all of this is; if I don't have a rooster am I depriving my flock of their most natural state and therefore making their lives more difficult?

With respect to the other posters here who have roosters (and in a setting where there is room for mini-flocks or tribes, each led by a rooster):

I think that we romanticize chicken lives, paralleling them to our own. Hens do very well with a good rooster. They also do very well without one.

Not everyone can have a rooster, and a breeding flock. I don't think that my pullets are marginally worse off (or better off) than those with roosters. They have set their own natural order, and they seem to be pretty happy clucking around, scratching in my decimated gardens, fussing about this, that, and the other, and snuggling up together at night when they roost.

Whether a rooster is present or not, most hens in backyard flocks are living significantly better than those in production farms.

There are many roads to Dublin, and there are many ways for chickens to have good lives.

 

[MarlaMac]

Important for who?
If the hens get a say in it I would say it's very important to have a mixed sex group. After all, their purpose in life is to reproduce.
Most hens like their roosters. It's usually the keeper who has other ideas of how nature should be managed and the vast majority of the time that management is based on their feelings and their wants. I would be well pissed off if some higher being decided to do away with women because they thought they were more trouble than they were worth.

Fully ranged chickens such as you have are live in a complex social structure. The full ranging makes it more complex because the experience potential is far greater than in say a fully confined group. These experience tend to widen the groups knowledge base and this in turn improves their chances of survival.

Life is not a bed of roses for us or them. I believe it's meant to be like that. The easier life gets, the lazier and less adventurous we and they get.
I've had twenty plus years of free ranging and day ranging mixed sex groups, usually with multiple roosters and cockerels. In the last four years I've cared for what were primarily a coop and run kept group which when I took over became at least a ranging group for two or three hours a day.
A few weeks ago the current groups rooster of the last nine years died and I was left with only hens.

They miss their rooster. I miss him to. Their behaviour has changed. The most alarming change is the hens are now treating me as their rooster. That alone should signal there is something awfully wrong going on. I can't do the stuff a rooster does; none of it. I couldn't do it even if I was with them 24/7.

On the occasions that a group, or tribe as I see them lost their rooster and had no male to take that place a senior hen has taken on the role. In a small tribe the hierarchy settles down quite quickly; in larger tribes the bickering seemed endless. The telling point was, when a male did make advances and attempted courting, the hens were a pushover. Sometimes the most senior hen of the group would seem to resent her loss of status, but even the most independent and experienced hen came round eventually.

Adjust your view. Let them breed and reproduce. Most people with the amount of land you have are farmers of one sort or another, so farm your chickens. Most are happy to eat the fertile eggs so extend this to eating the chickens and let them breed the replacements.
I don't see this as cruel at all. If we want to keep other live creatures as livestock in any shape or form then provide them with the best possible living conditions and make their deaths when you need to harvest some quick and painless.

I see your point completely; but, adjusting my view is not like flipping a switch. I wish it were, but it is not. We do not "farm" our land, but we do "manage" it for wildlife, which, of course, includes harvesting.

My chickens, though, I see differently. I agree - it is my own perspective foisted upon my flock. My sense of care-taking seems to include protecting them from harm - even harm that would come from my own hand b/c they depend on me for sustenance. To cull them or to harvest them seems, in my mind, like betrayal. I know that it is not, but I simply feel that way. This is the reason we manage our land for wildlife to obtain ag valuation instead of running cattle (which would be a lot easier in my opinion). I simply do not like killing things. I don't think I could actually eat a chicken I raised and harvested unless my life depended upon it.

I do see the point of having at least one rooster though and will probably continue in that vain. Most of my girls do enjoy his company and the others tolerate him well. I do think they would miss him, as would I, if he were gone.

Thank you.

 

[McChooky]

A roosters job isn't just to protect the flock its to reproduce and teach the young to respect the hierarchy of the flock.Keeping a rooster is not practical nor advised in all flocks

 

[McChooky]

Every package of meat in my freezer came from pigs,chickens and cows raised in a factory farm under far less humane conditions than how I raise my own .If more of us raised our own animals for meat these commercial farms would sell a lot less meat and fewer animals would suffer horrible lives and deaths

 

[MarlaMac]

Every package of meat in my freezer came from pigs,chickens and cows raised in a factory farm under far less humane conditions than how I raise my own .If more of us raised our own animals for meat these commercial farms would sell a lot less meat and fewer animals would suffer horrible lives and deaths

This here is exactly why I choose meat from local farms. Pasture raised, grass fed, humanely harvested. I do not buy meat from mass producers.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

This here is exactly why I choose meat from local farms. Pasture raised, grass fed, humanely harvested. I do not buy meat from mass producers.

We’re moving toward this (my husband somewhat reluctantly), and the higher cost helps us also shift our diets to more plant-based. Not that produce is cheap…