Hawk versus Rooster. Does this happen? What makes a "good" rooster?

As one of the videos points out, just to see an attack from start to finish is rare.
I'm waiting for a video of a rooster fighting off a hawk.
If you want to see a chicken fight a hawk follow hens with chicks for a few years.;)
Oh, don't forget the camera.
 
We have 16 hens and 1 rooster. I have read on here about people saying to keep your rooster if he is a "good" rooster. What makes him good or bad? We ordered all pullets, but were sent 2 extras that we did not even pay for. One ended up being a rooster. I believe he is a Welsummer, but my family thinks he is an Easter Egger. His name is Egger. One of the hens is named Easter. We thought he was a girl. Oh well. He's big and beautiful. I'll look for a photo. I don't think we have any recent ones. All of our hens arrived at 2 days old and one hen was always bigger than the rest. I believe she was born a day or so before the others. She also doesn't look like any of the others. Her name is Hey Hey Happy Head, or Hey Hey for short. Well, after a month or two, suddenly one of the "hens" was suddenly larger than her. This fast growing bird was our Egger, who is not a hen after all. When I do a search for Welsummer rooster, 19 of the 20 photos look just like Egger. When I search for Easter Egger rooster, maybe 2 out of 20 look like him. So I'm not sure what he is, or if it even matters.

I've read on here about roosters protecting their flocks of ladies. How brave are these guys? These are our first chickens and they are about 7 months old. We have bald eagles, hawks, coyotes, owls, red fox, black bears, outdoor cats, and more on our acreage. The main predator that flies overhead while the chickens are free ranging are hawks. I've seen in other threads where hawks will swoop down, kill and begin eating a hen right in front of their humans. Maybe there is no time, but I'm not sure why the humans didn't run over and punch the hawk in the beak. Instead, they took photos while the hawk ate their hen. That hawk would have to fight me first, and I don't think it would win.

What would my rooster do to a hawk? Run? Die? Fight? I'm sure it is up to each individual bird, but I'm also curious if there is a common action/reaction that these supposedly "good" roosters take when in protection mode. Fight or flight, I hope our Egger would fight. Maybe they know there's no hope and it's not worth his life for one of his hens. "Live to fight another day." (or for him: "Live to protect the majority of the flock tomorrow instead of dying to protect a minority/one hen today.") I look forward to hear some of your experiences on this.

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Is that your rooster in the picture, in front of the chalk board? If so, he's either an Easter egger or Welsummer.

Rooster behavior is hard to predict when it comes to hawks. There is absolutely no guarantee that your boy will stand up when and if the time came. He might, he might not. But if you watch a rooster and his hens when they are out free ranging, you will notice that the rooster usually has his head up while the ladies are foraging. He's watching for predators, and will likely warn the females if one is present. So roosters can be valuable, but if predator protection is your only reason for wanting one, you can do just fine without. Hens usually take up the slack of watching and guarding if a rooster isn't around.
 
We have 16 hens and 1 rooster. I have read on here about people saying to keep your rooster if he is a "good" rooster.... I've read on here about roosters protecting their flocks of ladies. How brave are these guys?.... We have bald eagles, hawks, coyotes, owls, red fox, black bears, outdoor cats, and more on our acreage. The main predator that flies overhead while the chickens are free ranging are hawks....

I guess that makes the American Game Cock a good rooster because game cocks are bred to sacrifice their own life before they allow an interloper rooster steal their flock.

If you are standing by and a hawk attacks you can usually save your chickens because a hawk is a very inefficient killer of poultry. Most chicken deaths at the hands of raptors are the result of the hawk slowly eating your hen or other poultry to death. Like the sage of Missouri states while the raptor controls the hen or rooster in its cruel talons.
 
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We just lost our "good" Roo to a Red Tailed Hawk today.:hit

That hawk has gotten two hens thus far. Our Reba the Rooster would sound the alarm and tend to his ladies. We believe he protected them well. We don't have gaming cameras, so we don't know exactly what happened. But we can tell he put up a helluva fight. ::RIP Reba::

We are thinking about getting some goats as deterrents, they are definitely NOT guardians. We have three 50lb dogs who are pets. The Bernese Mountain Dog-mix and the Australian Koolie definitely have guardian and working dog instincts. They keep the hawk away, but we don't leave them outside all the time. We are contemplating a guardian dog like a Newfoundland or Great Pyrenees, but are concerned about how it would interact with our current pack.

Has anyone had success with having goats as deterrents?
 
So sorry for your loss. I do not have goats. Hawks are a relentless predator. I’ve had to lock up my birds for 2 weeks until our predator moved on during migrating.
It’s awful...so sorry for your circumstances.
 
We just lost our "good" Roo to a Red Tailed Hawk today.:hit

That hawk has gotten two hens thus far. Our Reba the Rooster would sound the alarm and tend to his ladies. We believe he protected them well. We don't have gaming cameras, so we don't know exactly what happened. But we can tell he put up a helluva fight. ::RIP Reba::

We are thinking about getting some goats as deterrents, they are definitely NOT guardians. We have three 50lb dogs who are pets. The Bernese Mountain Dog-mix and the Australian Koolie definitely have guardian and working dog instincts. They keep the hawk away, but we don't leave them outside all the time. We are contemplating a guardian dog like a Newfoundland or Great Pyrenees, but are concerned about how it would interact with our current pack.

Has anyone had success with having goats as deterrents?
Red-tailed Hawks may not be as brazen around animals like goats. We have a couple groups of goats (one made up of about 100 and second about 10) at work on a series of pastures they are rotated over. Five diurnal raptor species hunt the area this time of year; Red-tailed, Red-shouldered, Northern Harrier, American Kestrel and Coopers Hawks. Only the Red-shouldered and Coopers hawks seem to hunt close to or among the the goats. The Red-shouldered has yet to be an issue for me under any conditions and Coopers do not do well when fully adult standard sized roosters are present. The problem in that setting is the goats are moved around a lot. The chickens would not be inclined to follow the goats if the paddock is more than 5 acres or so. We have Akbash (a faster and leaner LGD), but they stay with goats.
 
Roosters are like every other animal. In the instance of danger it's either fight or flight. I've seen both. A brazen rooster can intimidate a predator enough that he runs him off. The second outcome is the rooster sacrifices his life while the hens run.

Many roosters will run faster than the hens to cover than cackle up a storm with warning calls. You can't tell what a particular rooster will do until it happens. A rooster may even quickly calculate his best move, fight or flight, than act accordingly.

I have roosters first and foremost for look outs, because that's what they do best. If they can get everyone to cover because he spotted something far enough away that's a good rooster to me.
 

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