Introducing a Rooster - is it a good idea?

[azygous]

Such lovely girls! Every feather intact! If you get a rooster, within a week, those pristine beauties will be looking a tad tattered, at the very least.

There are no guarantees with roosters. You could luck out and get a real mannerly gentleman who takes his job seriously and keeps a keen eye out. On the other hand, you could get one that wears the hens out, and makes nervous wrecks out of them from too much attention, and doesn't do much protecting.

Then there are the risks to you and any small children in the area. Some roosters can be quite aggressive, and even can inflict serious wounds to humans and the hens.

It's a myth that you need a rooster to protect your hens. There are far more efficient ways to protect your flock.

I love my two roosters, though they were "unplanned". However, the hens manage quite well without them constantly after them. My roosters are completely useless other than being entertaining and pretty to look at. A covered, electric fence run protects my flock.

 

[TheIvoryKitty]

Jeez Louise! That sounds like a whollllleeeee lot of extra work that I don't need! LOL! Well, I will leave all that to the pros I think I'm going to stick with a regular old chicken tractor that doesn't care what I wear and doesn't need to eat any special kind of food! hahaha! I'm glad there are those like you guys out there, though, that will love roos with all their hearts and give them the care and attention that they need!

I love my rooster dearly. I hatched him under a StepMama hen. She nearly pecked him to death, and I had to raise him indoors. The hen wouldn't have anything to do with him and charged and pecked at him, each time I tried to reintroduce him to the flock-- until he got big. Now the girls like him.

But I have a Sebright Bantie, a very small breed. I thought my roo was leaving her alone, just doing his dance around her, but I saw him try to mate with her the other day and it scared me to death. He's way to big and could hurt her. So I have to keep her separate from him in an enclosed pen, which is a pain for her and for him, because they like each other. But I can't take any chances. I've worked too hard to raise the Bantam to risk seeing her get hurt.

Also, roosters need a different food from hens, and trying to keep a rooster out of laying mash is a big trick, when they are all together. I keep the laying mash in the pen with the Bantie, and I rotate the hens all day long with the rooster. In his pen is his All Flock food, which is lower in calcium. The excess calcium in laying mash is great for laying hens, but can cause kidney damage in roosters. I make freechoice oystershell available for the hens while they are in the pen with the rooster, eating the All Flock. The roo doesn't tend to eat the oystershell, I don't think. I haven't seen him touch it.

But all this fine-tuned coordination is exhausting, in my opinion. It was so much easier when I just had the hens.

And I can't say that my rooster is good predator protection. He is quite intelligent, though. When a visitor brought some nasty terrier dogs the other day who chased the hens, my rooster flew up on the rail, making me think he was going to get into the fray and protect the girls. I am so glad he had the good sense not to do so. Those terriers would have killed him in a flash. He stayed on the railing, and thank goodness, the terriers did not get the hens. It was a close call, though. He could have pecked out the terriers' eyes. Maybe because he was raised indoors by me he's a bit of a self-centered narcissist, protective of his beautiful feathers, and that is fine with me. I don't want to see my boy killed by a predator.

I am working on getting a safer, covered run, so I won't have this problem in the future.

I worry about his crowing upsetting the neighbors, so I bring him inside on the weekends, in case the neighbors want to sleep late with no crowing.

All of this takes a lot of time and energy.

But roosters are beautiful and add a lot of joy and fun to a flock. If you are looking for fascinating observations, I recommend a rooster. It is so fun to see how they think.

I do worry about my boy being a bit too rough with my hens. He is still a teen. He turns 27 weeks old on Tuesday. I am starting to keep my 2-year-old Barred Rock separate from him, too. I think I may need to get him some more adult hens, young ones. The two half leghorns who are his age seem to do okay with his advances.

 

[TheIvoryKitty]

AHHHHHHHH! NOOooooo!

No one touches my girlies' feathers!! Lol

Such lovely girls! Every feather intact! If you get a rooster, within a week, those pristine beauties will be looking a tad tattered, at the very least.

 

[ClareScifi]

Yes, and with roosters one must worry about frostbite. Baby has a large rooster comb, and I'm debating bringing him inside tonight, because it was rainy today, and that can result in frostbite on a cold night. He has never slept outside when it's been as cold as it's going to get tonight, 28 degrees F. It is almost 10 p.m. here and I hate to disrupt him, since he's been in bed in the coop for 2 hours now, but I didn't realize it was going to get this cold tonight. And I noticed his comb had some blood on it today. I don't know how that happened.

I find that my rooster gets bloody and injured quite a bit. In the last month or so he's bloodied a toenail, there was blood on his tailfeathers, and now his comb. It worries me. I've never seen blood on the girls, other than some of the rooster's blood that was on the back of his hen the other day (I think from his bloody toenail).

I think boys are harder to raise than girls! But I do love him with all my heart, body, and soul.

 

[Ashburnham]

I have had several roosters over the years that have fought predators to the death protecting their hens.

 

[TheIvoryKitty]

Poor babies, with so much spirit!

I have had several roosters over the years that have fought predators to the death protecting their hens.

 

[FarmingForFun]

Quote: Haha true it is a large area. I converted an old side of a barn that was just being used to store some miscellaneous stuff. Figured it would make a better chicken house than storage facility. I had about 19+ chickens in there at one point so I didn't want them to be cramped, but I moved about half of them along the new stock down to the barn at my house where they free range all day, and sleep shut in the barn at night. The 10 RIR's I kept up the hill have the space all to themselves...aside from a few outdoor guines. They free range most days on a about quarter acre that is fenced in for them. Though there are dangers to free ranging I am partial to it because of the benefit to the nutrition content of the eggs, meat, and not to mention less risk of paricites/disease. I have seen a few hawks around, but scared them off pretty good the first few times they landed so they are not much of a problem anymore.