Henpecked Rooster

[LaFleche]

After fighting off the hawk, was there any bleeding, maybe from his comb?

If so, this could have triggered the feather biting and eating behaviour as the blood would trickle onto his hackles and breast and back/saddle feathers causing the hens to peck at it and even eat the dried blood off of him as they like the taste.

I have had to deal with this once after one of my roosters decided to take a hefty bite at the combs of every single one of the other 8 roosters in the flock. This happened in the winter and the red blood flowing was very enticing for some of my RIR hens and RIR-Mixes. They would follow the bleeding roosters everywhere while eating their bloodstained feathers and would even peck at their comb to make them bleed more when the bloodflow would finally subside.
My other hens of different breeds left the bleeding roosters alone and did not join in.

I had to separate all 9 roosters, wash and blow dry them so no more blood was left on their plumage, but as soon as I put them back in the flock some of the earlier cannibalism-hens would start again, so I had to butcher them as well as the comb biting rooster to restore the peace in the flock.

 

[kittyvamp1884]

After fighting off the hawk, was there any bleeding, maybe from his comb?

If so, this could have triggered the feather biting and eating behaviour as the blood would trickle onto his hackles and breast and back/saddle feathers causing the hens to peck at it and even eat the dried blood off of him as they like the taste.

I have had to deal with this once after one of my roosters decided to take a hefty bite at the combs of every single one of the other 8 roosters in the flock. This happened in the winter and the red blood flowing was very enticing for some of my RIR hens and RIR-Mixes. They would follow the bleeding roosters everywhere while eating their bloodstained feathers and would even peck at their comb to make them bleed more when the bloodflow would finally subside.
My other hens of different breeds left the bleeding roosters alone and did not join in.

I had to separate all 9 roosters, wash and blow dry them so no more blood was left on their plumage, but as soon as I put them back in the flock some of the earlier cannibalism-hens would start again, so I had to butcher them as well as the comb biting rooster to restore the peace in the flock.

Yikes! I'm sorry you had to go through all that.

The ladies did peck his comb a lot when he was little... He was only 3-4 months old when he joined the flock, and he got picked on pretty badly back then, but no issues with comb damage since he took control of the flock.

There's some comb pecking between the ladies as well, but never to the point of cannibalism... It seems to be more of a dominance/pecking order behavior. The ladies only peck until they get what they want.

After the hawk attack (early March) we did have some blood on him and the hens that got caught in the crossfire. (although the majority of the blood was on his legs and spurs.) I got all that cleaned up right away.

(Side note, bathing chickens in general can be annoying, but bathing roosters sucks it's a good thing he likes me)

It's possible I might have missed some on his feathers while cleaning him up, but not enough to justify all this feather damage, and his comb wasn't damaged in the attack. Plus, it's been over 4 months now. Persistent damage like that would be hard to miss.

Our flock hasn't seen any substantive cannibalism when there is blood around. Although going near the chickens with a scab on YOUR leg pretty well guarantees you'll bleed when they peck off and eat the scab.