Is it me or the rooster?

[aart]

2
Quote: In my experience? I eat extra cockerels. I have a good cockbird, so don't bother with cockerels....
......tho I have had to segregate them like right now when they start making trouble,
and the instant relief that crating creates for all concerned convinces me not to bother with them.
Now I get rid of them before they start to make trouble.
But I have seen enough here to know that for a beginner,
it's often best to get rid of him until you have a bit more experience with chicken behavior in general.

 

[Lisa Wood]

In my experience? I eat extra cockerels. I have a good cockbird, so don't bother with cockerels....
......tho I have had to segregate them like right now when they start making trouble,
and the instant relief that crating creates for all concerned convinces me not to bother with them.
Now I get rid of them before they start to make trouble.
But I have seen enough here to know that for a beginner,
it's often best to get rid of him until you have a bit more experience with chicken behavior in general.

Ok. Got it.

 

[aart]

Oh, was going to suggest that you use the dog crate during the day for the cockerel then he could go into the coop after dark to roost and the dog could use the crate overnight. Maybe you can partition off part of coop with chicken wire for cockerel too, if your coop is big enough.

 

[donrae]

Bear with me while I try to sort this in my mind, okay?

He's an Oops cockerel in a flock of mixed age females. No older rooster, but older hens.

Is there any way to pull the younger pullets, and let him sort things out with the older hens for a month or so?

Or, why put all this work into it? He's an Oops, you didn't want him in the first place, and he's causing strife in the flock and in your life. Sell his butt off.

The only reason I'd see to keep him and invest time and energy is if you intend to breed and are looking for specific genetics. If not, send him on his way.

 

[Lisa Wood]

Oh, was going to suggest that you use the dog crate during the day for the cockerel then he could go into the coop after dark to roost and the dog could use the crate overnight. Maybe you can partition off part of coop with chicken wire for cockerel too, if your coop is big enough.

He's in a crate. I have a bunch of them from when I did rescue. I have one for in coop and can just move it out of coop in am. Had a time catching him, but finally got him cornered. He's quiet in the crate, cause he can see them all.

 

[Lisa Wood]

Bear with me while I try to sort this in my mind, okay?

He's an Oops cockerel in a flock of mixed age females. No older rooster, but older hens. 

Is there any way to pull the younger pullets, and let him sort things out with the older hens for a month or so?

Or, why put all this work into it? He's an Oops, you didn't want him in the first place, and he's causing strife in the flock and in your life. Sell his butt off. 

The only reason I'd see to keep him and invest time and energy is if you intend to breed and are looking for specific genetics. If not, send him on his way. 

So he is accidental rooster. Him and nine girls, all 13 weeks old, and all raised together. Our first time with chicks. I do dogs and have done horses when I was younger.
He will only bother me if he injures the girls. I just learned some breeding stuff. Before Art talked to me, all I knew was I saw pics of hens all bloody with naked backs, and that saddles can be used to protect the girls. Didnt know the roo stands on her bsck, or he had no penis, what age they start,vwhat is polite or rude, does she ever consent, you know all the normal chicken sex questions.
I cannot get rid of him unless husband agrees. But he us crated right now, and the dogs are free ranging )

 

[aart]

Quote: Oh, Good!
One of your previous posts led me to believe you only had one crate available and needed for a dog at night.

Foldable wire crates are one of my best chickneering tools. 2 door, 24 x 18 x 21 are my favorites.
I put 14ga 1x2 cage mesh in the bottoms of crates, and put the tray under the crate if necessary - depending on where it is being used.
If you're careful installing the smaller mesh in the bottom, you can still get the tray in the crate for storage or use.

 

[Lisa Wood]

Lisa, we all have to start somewhere. It helps to have experiences with other animals like you have but flock dynamics can be different from herd or pack dynamics in some ways. There are a lot of similarities too though.

You’ve had some good people responding to you on this thread, I’m not going to jump into the middle of that too much. We all have our own ways to manage these situations and we all have our own goals. But I wrote something a while back for a different post and a different situation, but you might benefit from reading it. I’ll add it to the bottom of this.

I generally recommend that you keep as few males as you can and still meet your goals. It’s not that you are guaranteed to have problems with more males, just that you are more likely to have problems. Chickens have their own personalities, just like individual dogs and horses. They are not all going to act the same. For a lot of people zero males is the right answer. It just depends on your goals.

Right now you do not have a rooster, you have an immature hormone driven adolescent cockerel. At 13 weeks the sex act is not about sex, it’s purely about dominance. When they all mature, it will probably calm down a lot down there, though some never really mature. That’s part of dealing with individual living animals. As one member of this forum said, watching adolescents go through this phase is not for the faint of heart. It can get really rough down when those hormones hit.

Here is that post I was talking about. Remember I was responding to a different question so it won’t precisely fit your situation.

Typical mating behavior between mature consenting adults.

The rooster dances for a specific hen. He lowers one wing and sort of circles her. This signals his intent.

The hen squats. This gets her body onto the ground so the rooster’s weight goes into the ground through her entire body and not just her legs. That way she can support a much heavier rooster without hurting her legs.

The rooster hops on and grabs the back of her head. The head grab helps him get in the right position to hit the target and helps him to keep his balance, but its major purpose is to tell the hen to raise her tail out of the way to expose the target. A mating will not be successful if she does not raise her tail and expose the target. The head grab is necessary.

The rooster touches vents and hops off. This may be over in the blink of an eye or it may take a few seconds. But when this is over the rooster’s part is done.

The hen then stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm into a special container inside the hen near where the egg starts its internal journey through her internal egg making factory.

With five month olds you are not dealing with consenting adults. You are dealing with adolescents that have no control over their hormones. The cockerels normally mature earlier than the pullets and are being driven mad by their hormones. The pullets have no idea what is going on so they certainly are not going to cooperate.

At that age most of this is not about sex either. The mating ritual is about dominance. The one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or by force. It’s not about pecking order either, but total flock dominance. The cockerel’s hormones are screaming at it to dominate the pullets but the pullets are not ready for that. It takes both to do their part, pullets as well as cockerel.

To do his job as flock master, the cockerel has to be the dominant chicken. How can he keep peace in his flock if he can’t break up a fight without the others beating the crap out of him? What good does it do to warn of danger if no one listens? How can he fertilize the eggs if they don’t cooperate? A cockerel is usually bigger and stronger than the pullets. If they don’t cooperate willingly he is going to force them. That’s part of his job, to be the dominant chicken.

Part of being the dominant chicken is that he has to act like a mature adult. He needs to dance for the ladies, find them food, watch for danger, keep peace on his flock, and do all the things a mature rooster does to take care of his flock. He also has to have enough self-confidence to win the hens over by his personality. It takes a while for most cockerels to get their hormones under control enough to be able to do this.

Normally the pullets and cockerel will eventually mature enough to play their part in the flock. For the pullets that is often about the time they start to lay, though some take a few months longer. I’ve had a cockerel do that at five months but that is really rare. I’ve had some that took a full calendar year to win over all the ladies. Normally around seven months a cockerel will mature enough to start getting his hormones under control and act like a flock master should. Normally the pullets are ready to accept him at this time but more mature hens may hold out a little longer. It’s going to vary with each flock, depending on the personality of the individual hens and rooster.

Until the cockerel and the pullets mature enough to fulfil their duties in the flock and learn proper technique, it can get pretty rough. Normally neither the cockerel nor the pullets are harmed during his maturing process but since force is involved injury is always possible. The big problem for a lot of people is that it is just hard to watch, especially if they don’t understand the dynamics of what is going on. I don’t see anything unusual or out of the ordinary in what you describe.

You may hear that disaster is assured unless you get more pullets. Some people believe that a magic ratio of hens to rooster will solve all these types of problems, ten to one is often quoted. It doesn’t work that way. Many breeders keep one rooster with one or two hens throughout the breeding season without any problems. One secret though is that they use roosters and hens, not cockerels and pullets. That makes a big difference. You can have the same problems with very small hen to rooster ratios as you do with very large hen to rooster ratios. If you want to use this as an excuse to get more pullets by all means go for it. But it is an excuse, not a real reason.

Some cockerels crow a lot. Some don’t crow much. It varies a lot by the individual. I don’t know of any way to control that during the day. Often if they are crowing at night they see a light. Maybe you have a security light or street light shining in a window. Maybe a car passing on the road will light up the coop. Maybe it is just a full moon. If you can keep the coop dark at night you can usually reduce the night-time crowing.

Good luck! It’s probably going to be a messy down there for a couple of months, but if you can get through this phase, you should have a nice flock.

Awesome awesome! May I take you to lunch? For me, the sight is not as alarming as the sound. When I was doing chores, absorbed in my thoughts, all if a sudden I hear her freaking out, which, since we raised them, converts to "Help! Hey food lady! Heeeeeeelp me!" So I drop my kitty litter scoop!? and rush to her, thinking,.......I dont know, the cat snuck in and is eating her alive!? I was actually relieved to see it was just the Accidental Rooster. The sight I can handle from breeding horses. I got it now. A young horse will start at her head, and also has to mature.
So, let me please ask, when he is dominating her, does he release sperm, thereby feeling sexually relieved as a by product?
We actually love his crowing. Bur you mention light. Do you mean you leave your coop totally dark? Black dark?
Would you post this article on the learning tab? I bet many people need it.

 

[Lisa Wood]

Oh, Good!
One of your previous posts led me to believe you only had one crate available and needed for a dog at night.

Foldable wire crates are one of my best chickneering tools. 2 door, 24 x 18 x 21 are my favorites.
I put 14ga 1x2 cage mesh in the bottoms of crates, and put the tray under the crate if necessary - depending on where it is being used.
If you're careful installing the smaller mesh in the bottom, you can still get the tray in the crate for storage or use.

Yes! Well I walked him through my house, and showed him a crate set up for one of my dogs, just thinking I could stick him in there for one night. I was concerned that AC might affect him. My untrustworthy dogs, two bulldogs, only are crated when I leave. No one sleeps in crates. They all sleep in bed, and my husband and I sleeo on the floor. (Joke)
So, I just had to find key to shed to get crate. I also bought X Pens for when they were little, but no roof there. I think Imma gonna go let him out. He has borne confinement well.

 

[donrae]

Yes! Well I walked him through my house, and showed him a crate set up for one of my dogs, just thinking I could stick him in there for one night. I was concerned that AC might affect him. My untrustworthy dogs, two bulldogs, only are crated when I leave. No one sleeps in crates. They all sleep in bed, and my husband and I sleep on the floor. (Joke)
So, I just had to find key to shed to get crate. I also bought X Pens for when they were little, but no roof there. I think Imma gonna go let him out. He has borne confinement well.

Thanks for the Diet Coke out my nose all over my keyboard

We have a Great Dane, so I know right where you're coming from

I'd hoped Ridgerunner would chime in with that nice post.

I get you on the noise. You'd think a prey animal would be quieter when there's a problem like this, but chickens tend to scream their fool heads off when something happens. Any pecking order dispute seems to involve a lot of vocalization, it's usually how the Omega shows submission, by screaming and running away. Well, she can't run away when he's grabbing her comb, so the screaming increases.

folks think roosters are noisy and hens are nice and quiet. Wait until your ladies hit point of lay---my coop sounds like the Hallelujah Choir at the moment