I had to get rid of Stumpy, my ginormous, mean, nasty Buff Orpington roo. The damage he did to the hens, along with me, just couldn't be tolerated. We didn't want the girls to be without a protector, though, and that's one thing Stumpy did marvelously.
When I was up at the chicken swap in Rochester, NH a couple of weeks ago a young woman was walking around holding this adorable little rooster in her arms. I asked her about him, and she said she was trying to rehome him, she had too many. She called him Skinny, he's an EE bantam roo. She told me he wasn't mean, was good with his girls, so I decided to take him - he's a third of the size of the late Stumpy! I couldn't take him that day, I had nothing to bring him home in, so we made arrangements to get him the following weekend.
We introduced him slowly, first in a dog crate inside the coop for a few nights, then the other night I took him out of the coop and put him up on the roost. The next morning it was like he was always there! His rooster dance is a riot, and he isn't brutal at all with the hens. Finally the poor things will grow back feathers. Stumpy had 14 hens out there, and he denuded 12 - the other two are the queens of the coop, obviously, they just wouldn't have anything to do with his antics, so they are only slightly damaged.
I named him Robin because when he's standing guard in the chicken yard he drops his wings just like the male robins I see staking our their territory. It's so cute!
Here he is in the run with his new girls, he seems very proud of them!
This is an overall of the run, he's standing right next to the center post:
It's so nice to be able to go out with the chickens and not worry about an attack by a 17 lb devil!
When I was up at the chicken swap in Rochester, NH a couple of weeks ago a young woman was walking around holding this adorable little rooster in her arms. I asked her about him, and she said she was trying to rehome him, she had too many. She called him Skinny, he's an EE bantam roo. She told me he wasn't mean, was good with his girls, so I decided to take him - he's a third of the size of the late Stumpy! I couldn't take him that day, I had nothing to bring him home in, so we made arrangements to get him the following weekend.
We introduced him slowly, first in a dog crate inside the coop for a few nights, then the other night I took him out of the coop and put him up on the roost. The next morning it was like he was always there! His rooster dance is a riot, and he isn't brutal at all with the hens. Finally the poor things will grow back feathers. Stumpy had 14 hens out there, and he denuded 12 - the other two are the queens of the coop, obviously, they just wouldn't have anything to do with his antics, so they are only slightly damaged.
I named him Robin because when he's standing guard in the chicken yard he drops his wings just like the male robins I see staking our their territory. It's so cute!
Here he is in the run with his new girls, he seems very proud of them!
This is an overall of the run, he's standing right next to the center post:
It's so nice to be able to go out with the chickens and not worry about an attack by a 17 lb devil!
