I want to scream ! Roosters fighting !!

[Year of the Rooster]

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As time goes on they will get less bloodier unless one of your roos is foolish enough to keep asking for more. I'm sorry, but this is nature. I had two silkie roosters that I just rehomed and one of them would fight with the one I have now. No blood, just fluffing up and spurring. Are you doing anything to help the wounds? Also, maybe you do not have enough hens. From reading what you said it seems you have a bad roo to hen ratio. Maybe getting more might solve your problem. I have a few hens too who have neck feathers plucked out and they are fine. If you are so worried about that, then I don't know what to tell you other than to get chicken saddles to protect their back feathers.

 

[chicklady63]

Just a thought, but do you have a local flea market where you could sell or even give away the extra roosters? I've had this problem too as do most people that have chickens and it is very upsetting, especially when you don't want any of them to kill or mangle the other. There always seems to be too many roos & if you ever have a bad hatch but manage to get a few survivors, the majority, if not all, of those will be roos - they're just stronger I guess, even at birth. Sometimes putting the roosters in a separate pen with no hens to compete over helps. I think this time of year they're much worse also. Spring fever and those breeding hormones are raging. So glad I'm not a hen...

Good luck!

 

[Opa]

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I too have on occasion posted something that someone may have taken exception to. Please don't stop posting. We all can benefit through shared knowledge.

The only sure way to prevent roosters from fighting is like you stated, separate them. Cockfighting evolved from roosters natural tendency to fight. So breeds are worse than others and some roosters within individual breeds can be worse than others. Removing their spurs can help to minimize the damage since that is their primary weapon.

Placing saddles on hens will he. Oft times a rooster will have a favorite hen who will become quite badly beat up. Removing her will cause him to pick a new favorite while she heals. Try to watch and remove hens any time the bare spots become large and before the skin is perforated. That way you won't have to worry about infections. Free ranging birds aren't as prone to rooster damage since they to have the option to flee. Fenced birds get cornered by the roosters. Also watch that your rooster to hen ratio is correct.

 

[Pupsnpullets]

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Keep posting, enola. Chihuahuamom, I understand your frustration. I had 2 roosters that simply would not get along. Their fights went on for hours!!! Neither would quit. finally had to separate them and they freeranged on alternate days, and even then one would continually fence spar the other when he was out.

 

[chicklady63]

One other thing I have noticed in my personal experience is that people often "shy" away from something that is free! I don't really understand it, but maybe they think there's something "wrong" or undesirable about the thing. I had some beautiful Old English Game bantams with a surplus of hens & roosters for the space I could allot to them as I keep my breeds separate. My father casually knew someone that had mentioned she wanted to "get" some chickens. She got my number from him & called me. She wanted to come over that evening when I told her what I had. Then she asked how much? I told her she could have them for free. Her tone of voice & attitude changed & she added then that she would have to talk with her husband first. Never saw her that day & didn't hear from her for weeks. Then one day she called me by mistake checking her cell phone for unfamilar numbers, & I reminded her of who I was & that she had said she would come & get the chickens. She hung up on me! Strange...
Maybe you could list them for just a small charge instead of free - I wonder of there's some psychology to that?

 

[Chihuahuamom]

Well the hens with the bald backs are in my study till I figure out where to put them for now. The roosters are in a sep enclosure, and will prob stay there and the silkie is in my shop where he'll stay till I can find him a home. Unfortunately, I am one that let a couple hens have chicks last fall and end up with about 75% roosters, I have NO luck where that is concerned, SO no more chicks for my girls. I think I do have enough hens, but the two little frizzles seem to strike the fancy of my two roos and thats why they have gotten the worst of it. But as bad as I feel having them sep thats what I will do, cause I just can't watch the aggressive behavior of these roosters. If I didn't have an attachment to them, they'd all go. They couldn't ask for a nicer home, I had a carpenter fix my shed up and add heat and air, they're comfortable in the winter and summer and they have an outside enclosure that's 60 ft by 80 ft, all chainlink and all netted in for their safety and they get to free range when I'm home. I'm just frustrated that they still give me Grief !

 

[enola]

I am constantly amazed by posts on here asking for help. Then they get upset when the don't hear what they wanted to hear.

Keeping chickens is sort of like having an aquarium, as long as you do what is natural, everything is beautiful. As soon as you don't "follow nature's rules" it all falls apart.

I am not going anywhere, this is the best "chicken site" I have found.

 

[Granolamom]

Just how many hens and roosters DO you have?

 

[the simple life]

You don't say where you live but if you put that under your avitar it can help.
Someone may live near you and offer to take one, you never know.
Have you posted in the trade,buy and sell section of this forum?
I sold several roosters yesterday( 12) at a swap.
I sold 4 more at a swap the week before.
There are people that do want roosters.
Do you have swaps near you, poultry auctions?
You do not say how many hens you have but it is really important to keep things in balance.
None of my roosters were really at the fighting stage yet but I could see it happening as they were starting to mature.
They all came from eggs that I hatched and you always end up with way more roosters than hens when you hatch, out of the last couple of hatches I had I ended up with 20 roosters, so I sold 16 of them and kept 4 for the 36 laying hens that I have and I am still going to sell one more next week.
Its hard to part with your favorites but you really have to or they will end up ripping eachother apart.
If you don't have luck with craigslist, try an auction or a swap.
The only other options are to keep them seperate at all times, seperate pens and seperate runs.
Good luck with it.

 

[Chihuahuamom]

I am asking for advice, BUT take offense when you tell me off for letting my hens get torn up until they die !! That is absurd cause it couldn't be further from the truth! Maybe it wasn't intended for me but it looked that way and I got insulted. And the remark about me not wanting to take the time to do whats right, or something simliliar. They were insulting remarks in my oppinion and forgive me for standing up to them. I don't have chickens expecting everything to be hunky dory all the time. I was simply asking advice as to what to do with roosters that have to go. Or what people do with aggressive roos. I wasn't wanting to hear thats what roosters do and let them fight till the death, that's just Sick in my oppinion. I would take them all to my vet and have them put down before I'd put a lawn chair out there and see who wins!