Help Choosing which cockerel to keep

[RoosterWhisperer]

I ended up with two cockerels in the batch of chicks I have been raising. They are both about 4 months old now. The Dominique is the dominate one and he has just begun crowing in the past week. Both of them are calm around me thus far but the EE has been frisky with the pullets to the point of trying to grab and corner any as they enter the run. There are 13 pullets that were raised with them. I am leaning towards the Dominique because he seems the most calm with the girls and it might be nice to raise a few of my own. The flock is mixed, dominique, EE, RIR, Black Astro, RLBW, LB.


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Personally, I would keep the Ameracauna roo in a heartbeat.
He's much prettier in my opinion, and he will settle as he gets older, I have a EE mix rooster and he has been the best flock protector out of all the males.
If he's not aggressive toward you, that's amazing, "none" of my roosters in with the hens are aggressive, not one itty bitty bit!

 

[CHlCKEN]

Keep whichever Rooster is more “respectful”. In my opinion, a rooster who attacks you is no fun to have around.

 

[RoosterWhisperer]

I like the Dominique too. It has been soooo long since I have kept a rooster. I was still living at home then and my mom had what I believe was just a barnyard mix rooster. He was great and never once bothered me. My main concern is human aggression and then also treating the hens well. My grandchildren visit often and I don’t want them to be at a risk. I would never leave them alone with a rooster, but I would prefer he ignore them.
I tend to be more hands off with my chickens. I held them as chicks to inspect their buts and move them but otherwise just let them be chickens. I raise my chicks in the coop from day 1 as I think this is so much healthier for them and us ...lol...
I think I will wait another month or so and keep watching their behavior before I make my decision. It may be easier to rehome one as Spring gets near.

I hand raise mine from babies, I own them for eggs and companionship, nothing else.
If it has a name, it doesn't get eaten.
My family donates the eggs, since the hens lay TONS.

 

[jeapa]

Personally, I would keep the Ameracauna roo in a heartbeat.
He's much prettier in my opinion, and he will settle as he gets older, I have a EE mix rooster and he has been the best flock protector out of all the males.
If he's not aggressive toward you, that's amazing, "none" of my roosters in with the hens are aggressive, not one itty bitty bit!

Unfortunately he has started acting aggressively towards myself and my husband. The Dominique has been fine towards us and the hens. I actually think he is the better looking too myself. I won’t keep an aggressive rooster so I am going to send him to the freezer this weekend. I decided that is probably best. The remaining Dominique cockerel will have 12 pullers to himself, 13 if you count the 1 little bantam pullet.

 

[jeapa]

I agree that an aggressive rooster is better processed into a meal vs. passed onto someone else. If you offer him for sale at a low price or free, someone would probably buy him for a meal and you wouldn't have to do it yourself. In any case, it's probably not worth giving up pullets. The only rooster I've had to process due to human aggressiveness was a Dominique. I am very partial to Dominique hens, but the 3 cockerels I've had, have really overused my hens. They weren't aggressive toward them, just very active and tended to leave bald spots on their heads and missing comb parts where they held on for balance. Other than the 1 human-aggressive rooster, the other Dominique cockerels (his sons) were very sweet to me and easily handled, although they were extremely dominant over the other cockerels. I rehomed them, as a pair, to a laying flock where they would each have 15+ hens to look after.

Thus far our Dominique cockerel has been fine. No aggression and I have actually seen him break up disagreements between the pullets. I hope he remains this way. At this point he is perfect, but I know that could change.

 

[cincyfarmgirl]

Just an update on my two cockerels. The Easter egger started doing the sneak up behind me and act innocent behavior. When I turned around to face him he flared his feathers and looked menacing. He did not attack and I did not back down. My dh has been away the past two weeks guarding the Capitol in DC so the flock hasn't seen him in a while. He is off for the next 10 days for mandatory quarantine and today he was out back working on his trailer and the Easter Egger cockerel came at him. So he has made the decision so much easier for us. The Dominique remains totally indifferent to our presence in the yard or around the flock.

I will be posting the EE cockerel along with two POL pullets, to sweeten the deal, on Craigs list for $20. I figure the pullets are worth that much and the cockerel is a freebie.

Sorry to hear about that regarding the Cockrells. I’m also wanting to get rid of at least two of my young cockerel Easter Eggars. They are beautiful and they have not shown any aggression toward humans but they’re a little overzealous with the hens and I’d just prefer to keep my more mature gentlemanly beautiful big Brahma rooster. So my two EE cockerels are up for grabs also.