Hateful Roo or sick Hens?

parkerfarms2012

Hatching
7 Years
Jul 25, 2012
2
0
7
Homer Georgia
I had 2 of the prettiest polish hens ever one white one black. they were about 6 months old and I thought these girls were in meed of a man, so I was on the lookout! Two weeks ago I run across this handsome blue/white crest Roo that has a crow like no other bought him brought him to the girls put them in their new enclosure and was excited about the fretile eggs I would be getting for my incubator. Well the next morning I went to check on my chickens as I have several and this rooster was standing on top of one of the hens and she was dead! I had an old farmer tell me the hen probably died due to the stress of moving. (evidently not) Because of the advice I got I left the other hen in there, well about a week later as I am checking the chickens I walk up on the same scene, Roo was standing on top of the last dead hen, and as I tried to get her out he proceeded to flog me. What should I do? Should I assume he killed my hens or should I try again? I lost two bantam roosters the same week due to the heat and wet weather but these were in the coolest and the dryest location possible. I am just wondering what to do!
 
Hello and welcome to BYC
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Sorry to hear about your losses. You got to get rid of that rooster! He sounds like bad news. I've never heard of a roo killing hens, but there's always a first time. And if he's attacking you...
 
I would not keep him, but it is possible (since you lost other birds), that the combination of the roo trying to breed the hens (new stress) and the heat resulted in the deaths.
 
I agree with greymane. I could be a combination. Stress from heat, move and new Roo advances because they can get really aggressive when trying to get their "ladies in order"
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I had something kinda similar happen in one of my coops. Lost a couple hens, however they were pretty tore up from the Roo. So It was quite evident that he was the issue.
 
On top of the advice given, I would like to ask some questions...

How long have you had the roo?

Where did he come from?

How high were temps in your area?

Were there any marks on the hens?

I can't believe everyone jumped on the poor roo...you do know that the roos main goal in life is to protect his girls? So, when you went in to get the dead one, I would not have been at all surprised that he attacked you...he was protecting his girl that couldn't protect herself.

How did you introduce these chickens to one another? How long did you take to introduce? Did you watch to see how they got along before leaving them alone?

If that rooster killed those hens, their heads would be torn to shreds from him pecking them repeatedly.

I know that some keep a rooster with 2 hens but, the rule is more 5 hens to one roo and most like to keep 10.
 

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