help identifying rooster breed? juvenile , rescued

[thorton]

This fella has come to live with me at the ranch.
He was running around my aunts neighborhood for a month or so, waking everyone up at odd hours of the night.
He made home in her garage before I went to pick him up. He is super friendly and loves cats! He rubs and even lays with the cats. My aunt has asked around the neighborhood and Noone claims him.

He has been in a fight with another larger rooster that has also shown up in the neighborhood. So he has scabs on his comb, which apear to be healing fine.

This is my first rooster, and I plan to put him in a 40ft by 20ft square pen with my 7 hens. The hens have never been with a rooster, so this will be a first.


Any tips for things to check for on him prior to placing him with my flock?
Also is there a reason why roosters cro at anytime of the day. He seems to cro quite often. Which doesn't bother me, just curious what it means?


My ultimate question is what breed is he?
I've looked up similar pictures but none I am sure of.

Thank you!

(Temporary cage with food and water until placed in a new pen)

 

[chooks4life]

This is my first rooster, and I plan to put him in a 40ft by 20ft square pen with my 7 hens. The hens have never been with a rooster, so this will be a first.

Any tips for things to check for on him prior to placing him with my flock?

Asides from that the worst things he may carry are basically invisible, for two examples Marek's Disease and Avian Leukosis Virus, which your hens are likely resistant to (but may not be). They may also not be resistant to the strains of those diseases the rooster/cockerel may be carrying, even if they are resistant to some strains of those diseases already.

Of more concern are respiratory diseases, but really most of these diseases only kill a minor percentage of all chickens and breeding for resistance while feeding them a good diet and keeping them healthy and happy is the best way to manage the threat, not avoiding it so their immune systems are naive and weak and when the diseases do get into the flock it's devastating instead of a minor transient illness.

Quote:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/poultry.html

http://www.poultryhub.org/health/disease/types-of-disease/

In domestic fowl it often means nothing more than that he's reached sexual maturity, really, for many roosters it's nothing more than a sort of involuntary spasm. I have seen very few roosters that consciously control crowing, others cannot and would literally crow underwater if the urge struck them. I've seen some crow at absolutely stupid and life-endangering times, and be utterly unable to stop it, which sounds hilarious when they're trying to run while crow.

I think in the wild, among feral chickens or junglefowl, crowing would also draw interested hens, which may judge a male by the strength, decibels and length of his crow... But maybe not, the idea that females judge males by their songs or vocalizations is looking increasingly debunked, more and more studies are finding it's not actually the criteria they're choosing males on. It appears male displays are almost entirely for the benefit of other males, on average. In that case it would make sense that other roosters would judge another male by his crow and possibly migrate to his territory to challenge him for it, if they get the impression from his crow that he's an opponent they can take on and beat.

It's very much an inherited trait, both males and females inherit predisposition to frequency/volume/duration of vocalizations, various patterns and responses, and vocal tone/pitch from their same-sex parents (and sheer noisiness and the 'carry-on' ruckus-making preference come from either gender and in my experience are unfortunately passed down to offspring more often than not).

My hens don't 'sing' the so-called 'egg song' because I culled out those that did it too much because when you keep hundreds of chooks that degree of noisiness can be maddening. It's a good example of how heritable vocal traits are. It's just a modified alarm call in my opinion, an altered instinct bred into a wide array of domestic breeds of chickens as a result of them watching humans raid their nests too often and becoming anxious about the plundering of their clutches, until they habitually and now meaninglessly repeat the alarm call every time they lay.

My ultimate question is what breed is he?

http://www.backyardpoultry.com/wiki/index.php/Chicken_Breeds_Chart

The thing is, every color and pattern you get in purebreds, you can get in completely random mutts. You also get them in crossbreds, multiple purebreds share a color type, and crossbreeding can still sometimes produce animals that look purebred for one parent breed but are not.

As with all other domestic animals, if you don't know it's pure for sure, assuming it's not is the best bet.

If you plan to breed him I highly recommend you inbreed him for a minimum of one generation to find out what bad genes may be lurking, as with all other breeds there is at least one (but more often multiple) bad genes hiding in there, and outbreeding is not necessarily any safer than inbreeding. Much ado is made about 'recessive' bad genes (some of which may act dominant in some conditions) but not enough attention paid to 'dominant' bad genes (some of which may act recessive under some conditions). Either type is a problem if you've got it throughout your flock. But for many people 'recessive' is synonymous with 'bad' and they think they're safe only outbreeding. Not so simple.

Best wishes.

 

[Wyandottes7]

Chooks4Life has given you some excellent advice! He looks like a mixed breed cockerel to me.

 

[BantamLover21]

Chooks4Life has given you some excellent advice! He looks like a mixed breed cockerel to me.

x2

 

[thorton]

@chooks4life
Thank you! This is all a learning process, I'm trying to do as much homework on raising my chickens.
I've spend most of the morning putting shade over his new pen. he's going to spend some time there before being put with my hens.
The pens are withing ear shot of each other and both the hens and Cockerel are making tons of noise. I love him and noises he makes! It's time to name him!

My local feed store only had Wazine 17 wormer. Should I look into getting something different? I plan to worm my hens also.

As far as breed, I'm perfectly fine with a mix, mutt breed. I think he's beautiful. I just like to know what to explain to curious visitors.
I have never breed or raised chick's from eggs, but now I might since he's drown the flock. (Still need to do more homework or breeding)


Of course this is all for hobby and having fresh eggs.

Thank you for taking the time to explain.

 

[Michael OShay]

Chooks4Life has given you some excellent advice! He looks like a mixed breed cockerel to me.

Agreed.

 

[chooks4life]

@chooks4life
Thank you! This is all a learning process, I'm trying to do as much homework on raising my chickens.
I've spend most of the morning putting shade over his new pen. he's going to spend some time there before being put with my hens.
The pens are withing ear shot of each other and both the hens and Cockerel are making tons of noise. I love him and noises he makes! It's time to name him!

My local feed store only had Wazine 17 wormer. Should I look into getting something different? I plan to worm my hens also.

As far as breed, I'm perfectly fine with a mix, mutt breed. I think he's beautiful. I just like to know what to explain to curious visitors.
I have never breed or raised chick's from eggs, but now I might since he's drown the flock. (Still need to do more homework or breeding)


Of course this is all for hobby and having fresh eggs.

Thank you for taking the time to explain.

You're very welcome.

You sound like you've got things sorted already, keeping him separate for a while as they get used to one another and while you do some 'homework'.

I would suggest putting one of your least-fiesty hens in with him to begin with, whenever you're ready, to 'set the tone'. (Along with a handful of some food they really like). I'd leave her in with him for a full day probably, and maybe add a second hen in the second day, maybe let the first ones out as you gradually introduce more, until they've all met him and had time to sort out their social structure.

That's playing it super-careful and is unnecessary for the majority of cases, but it can help prevent some problems. Like if you have a very dominant hen, with no prior experience with roosters she may perceive his behaviors as being those of another dominant hen and fight him for alpha status; introducing them one on one, or in small groups, can help potential issues be resolved quickly without it becoming a gang-fight or bullying issue.

(None of that may occur even if you just let him out one day with no preamble, it may well be totally fine to do that, but if you feel like playing it extra-careful, that'd be one way. Just an option).

Before doing this I would also feed him in full sight of the hens, myself, to bring them to his cage and give him a chance to 'tidbit' and hopefully help stir the appropriate reaction in them. Instincts can become dormant due to lack of stimulation, and can take a bit of repeated stimulation to recover.

If your hens have never seen a rooster, and were not raised with roosters, their reaction can be as though he is another hen, meaning that his attempts to court them, and mate, can be received as attacks which can rapidly degenerate into a status fight where naturally there never should have been any conflict.

Contrary to some ideas of chicken society, adult males and females don't naturally fight over who's alpha; there's an alpha male (who fights over that title with other males only) and an alpha female (who fights over that title with other females only), but raising them without their natural family unit and gender-segregated can lead to diminished instinct, and social manners having not been learned, which all vastly increases the chances of there being violence instead of cohesion. Such roosters and hens will often fight one another.

Anyway, not saying this to worry you, just try to help things work out peacefully. I dare say by the fact that he's so young and has been dumped, he was probably one of a group and raised with pullets but discarded once he began crowing, so he at least should have an idea how to treat females. Your females may be the main issue there. But, hopefully all goes well, you're doing all you can in giving them time first.

I'm very partial to 'mutts' myself, I enjoy the variability, a surprise in each generation, watching the genes interplay, not having to see only micro-differences between each generation of uniformly colored and shaped chooks. All your chooks looking identical is good for some, just not for me.

About the wormer, I've only used natural wormers for my chooks, so I can't advise you on Wazine, though back when I started with a few other species I did use conventional wormers (on dogs, cats and sheep)... Since then I've only used natural ones, they do work but it takes a bit of homework to make it effective. The same is true for artificial wormers too though. You'd need to get some idea of how prevalent resistance to the over-the-counter wormers are in your region in order to not just be adding to their resistance, for example, and some you are not allowed to ever use in animals whose meat or eggs will be consumed by humans. That doesn't stop a lot of people using them and still using the meat and eggs but it's still clearly not a good idea.

I think for newbies it may be better to use chemical ones to begin with because controlling parasites naturally is a bit different, a bit longer term and labor intensive, though I couldn't describe it as actual work, lol. My normal regime involves regular dosage of some things like cayenne, garlic, etc, but for new animals I bring in that have a heavy burden of parasites I use things like wormwood, which can be dangerous in overdose. Some natural wormers will also kill capillary worms and other sorts that can't easily be killed through things like cayenne in the diet, but it may be a bit more 'homework' for a newbie than they're ready for.

A great first start for intestinal parasites, even if you're going to use a conventional wormer as well, is cayenne pepper or tabasco sauce. You can use olive oil or yoghurt to bind it to wholemeal bread or mix it in with hardboiled egg or something else they like, and give that to them once a day. Doesn't have to be more than once a week really, but given preferably before the full moon, because worms (parasitic and otherwise) tend to have a reproductive cycle that strongly corresponds to the moon (circalunar cycles) so worming as the moon is growing towards being full is far more likely to kill the maximum amount of parasites and their eggs as they move into the intestines to breed.

Depending on what you're worming with, any day, or even every day, in the week before the full moon is ideal, but anytime within the two weeks (one prior to and one after the full moon) is good too.

Even some people that use chemical/artificial wormers do this as well, not just those who use herbs, because while you can worm anytime and kill the worms anywhere in the body, their corpses remaining lodged in the organs of the host and rotting there, rather than being passed out with the feces, is potentially fatal to the animal you've wormed, so it's better to do it while they've moved into the bowels where they can be easily eliminated after death, and where their eggs can also be destroyed along with them.

For advice on chemical wormers your local livestock produce store can probably help, so can a lot of people on this forum of course. Casportpony (Kathy) and Dawg53 are two people very up to date on 'chemical'/conventional wormers.

Best wishes and good luck with them.