I'm new to chickens - until about two months ago we had only ducks
but we bought a 50 acre farm this summer so now we've added guineas, turkeys, and chickens including a laying flock of 7 Golden Comet hens and two black Austrolorp roosters. I've been told that the roosters are about one year old and 2-3 years old, so definitely fully established adults. The lady we bought the laying flock from warned us that the roosters were "aggressive" but they've been perfectly polite gentlemen to me and my husband, even when we were catching hens in the coop. They seem to take great care of the hens and watch over them while foraging. I treat them kinda like I do my dogs (2 Yorkshire Terriers): if you're in my way, you need to scoot, and just like with my dogs I talk to the roosters (and the rest of the poultry) telling them how pretty they are, what clever "insert-species-and-sex-here" they are, what a good job they are doing, and isn't it a nice day out, etc. The roosters and laying flock have already figured out that I am "The Bringer of Tastey Treats" (damaged produce from a friend's market farm) and come right over when I start tossing it to them.
My husband usually gathers the eggs (because the camper-coop the flock came in is
nasty and with everything else going on we haven't been able to clean it yet) but I gather eggs at least a couple times a week and we both feed and water equally. I'm usually the one who lets them out of their coop in the morning and I'm the one who checks on "Ms. Broody" and her eggs - my big tough husband is afraid of her because she "growls" at him lol.
Our in-town neighbors from before we moved to the farm love our farm and come out whenever they can, even before we moved in to the farm, and I'd told them to help themselves to the eggs whenever they wanted. Apparently when the husband gathered eggs, the roosters simultaneously attacked him from opposite sides! Maybe because he doesn't feed them or anything and they don't recognize him as having the proper clearance?
