I have a backyard and chickens

bad monkey

In the Brooder
May 5, 2017
5
0
15
Wisconsin
A friend gave me 12 chickens, 2 roosters and 10 hens. My wife of 33 years named the roosters Foghorn and Big Red, my avatar is Hpenny. Hpenny got her name when she had Vent gleet and she spent the night in a box in the kitchen, she was so polite, we used Apple cider vinegar in water on all of them because it balanced the ph levels and penny was eating again the same day. The fella that gave me the birds gave me the food too, which is what made them acidic, we changed that too.
I've had to learn alot in the month since I got them and joining this forum made sense so.... I use Diatomaceous earth for paracites on all my animals, being 19% calcium it's good for a calcium suppliment.
We're holistics and neither of us have gone to chemical doctors in years. I read up on Iridology when I was a young man and today I read humans eyes to find health problems. We have 3 cats a dog and I have eye charts for them too. I also have a green check conure, the original angry bird.
I enjoy landscape and vegitable gardening but my favorite is Bonsai, I love my little trees. Unfortunately when life happens they die first so I don't have many. My oldest is 4 years and the rest were started this winter and last so their young yet. I found mimture pansies and hyacinth in the yard so I'm thinking about doing a fairy garden this year.
I do have a question, how do I keep my roosters from fighting? They didn't fight when we got them but they've nearly killed themselves twice. Red was bleeding so much after the first one no amount of flour in this world would stop it, I'm using tea tree oil on them now, on an open wound it burns like fire but the blood stops and it serves them right. Red is in the coop with his brown birds and Foghorn is in my greenhouse and I want my greenhouse back. I can't let the hens free range because those roosters find a way out and the last time they fought 6 hours before I could get hands on them.
I'm here to learn so I won't say much.
Steven
 
Hello & welcome! Sounds like you are busy folks with the garden, animals and such. Did you get the roosters and hens at the same time? It sounds like they are getting territorial - how much room do they have? If they are free ranging and still fighting, I would try rooster jail. Build them a temp coop well away from the ladies and toss them both in together. If they settle down let them out after a couple of days.
2 roosters for 10 hens is a bit 'tight' on the numbers. A rooster can cover between 1-15 hens, so the ladies are likely the source of discontent and apparently both roosters feel they are 'alpha'. If they continue to fight the only other solutions are give one away or pop one in the soup pot.....
Let us know how it goes..
 
Nice to meet you Stephen, best thing to do is rehome one of the roosters or both. Hens will happily survive without a rooster, and will continue to lay the same amount of eggs, though they will be non-fertile without a rooster.
 
Hello

Thank you all. I have an incubator and figured I would use the birds I have and some selective breeding to start with a new crowd. When the roosters didn't get along I put Foghorn, looks more Columbian rock but he is white with my 2 white hens and leave the brown birds in the big pen in the back, that was my plan. The white birds were happy in the small pen but there were problems in the back. By the time the hens finished there are 6 hens in the small pen with Foghorn and 4 hens in the back pen with Red. They wouldn't just break out of the back pen, the broke into the front. Now I want to put the white birds in. The back and the red birds in the front because there's fewer of them but speakingof the one thing you never want to admit on a chicken message board, those birds would flip me the bird and start with the musical pens again. They look at you like they're cure and harmless but they're deviants.
 

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