- Mar 21, 2014
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Hello!
We have an established flock of 7 hens. Our next-door neighbor had 3 roosters to their 10 hens, and the roosters were constantly sparring, so we offered to take one on. He's a beautiful, healthy bantam/Silkie cross, on the smaller side. 8 months old.
We kept "Bruce" in an enclosed pen inside our coop's run for about a week in order to let the girls get acclimated to him. We have also done some supervised free ranging with all of them together, and it went well. Bruce got a few random pecks from our top hens at first, but then nothing more. He was crowing and they were all foraging around in the yard harmoniously.
Thinking everything was fine, we finally integrated Bruce into the henhouse/enclosed run. The ladies gave him a few good pecks, which I expected, and then they left him alone. But that was apparently enough for Bruce. Now he has taken to either cowering in a corner of the run or under one of the boards inside the coop.
Should I separate him again from the hens? Thank you for your help. We are fairly new to the chicken raising world and I couldn't find too much info online about hens bullying roosters - mostly just the opposite!
We have an established flock of 7 hens. Our next-door neighbor had 3 roosters to their 10 hens, and the roosters were constantly sparring, so we offered to take one on. He's a beautiful, healthy bantam/Silkie cross, on the smaller side. 8 months old.
We kept "Bruce" in an enclosed pen inside our coop's run for about a week in order to let the girls get acclimated to him. We have also done some supervised free ranging with all of them together, and it went well. Bruce got a few random pecks from our top hens at first, but then nothing more. He was crowing and they were all foraging around in the yard harmoniously.
Thinking everything was fine, we finally integrated Bruce into the henhouse/enclosed run. The ladies gave him a few good pecks, which I expected, and then they left him alone. But that was apparently enough for Bruce. Now he has taken to either cowering in a corner of the run or under one of the boards inside the coop.
Should I separate him again from the hens? Thank you for your help. We are fairly new to the chicken raising world and I couldn't find too much info online about hens bullying roosters - mostly just the opposite!
