Is it okay to tie my roosters???

[DTchickens]

Quote:
I was interested in learning about teathering because I intend to keep a couple of extra roosters for breeding, but I really don't need to have fifteen little coops around my 1/3 acre lot. Portable barrel-sized shelters I can deal with (I already have several).

Does the roo need to learn to be tied starting early? Right now my teenage (8weekers) are all loose together, but eventually I want to have 3 roos and only range one with the hens. Do I need to tie up the "special" ones now so they can get used to it?

Also, do they sell special "rooster leashes" or do I have to try to make something up from my own devices????
I was particularly curious about the part that goes on their leg (the part equivilent to a dog's collar I guess) since nothing for any other animals comes that small I'd need something either made for roosters or a good suggestion for making something up.

Most tie cords are nylon cord, you can purchase them (or make them like my dad did) from places like Belle farms (I think that is what they're called) or Randall Burkey, as well as the hitches for them. Most roosters will peck at the cord, and I have even seen some try to hit at it, it is expected being new to them.. But after a day, or even a couple hours they have worked out the boundaries and realized the cord won't harm them. After that you don't really have much to worry about except maybe a predator (I don't suggest tying out bantams due to hawks, but most of the times hawks leave large roosters unharmed) and you WILL have to occasionally untangle the cord from sticks and such.. But bout it. Never had a bird get wrapped up in it himself over all the years (every year) we've used them and I have seen others use them.

-Daniel.

 

[miachick]

Thanks for this info, I have a crazy rooster jumping on everyone! Its eather tie him or have him for dinner!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

A 10 foot long tie cord will yield over a 310 square foot paddock area for your rooster to call home. Many so called purpose built chicken tractors and coops proudly advertised only 2 - 4 square feet per bird. Therefor a rooster on a tie cord has a home range over 150 TIMES greater than a poor hen living in many backyard coops. Have any of you ever wondered were the term
"I'm feeling all cooped up," originated?

Your rooster or anyone's rooster for that matter will do far better on a proper tieout cord than he will in any wood, wire, and tin pen. The things to watch for is to make sure he can't get his cord tangled on his shelter, which typically is a tee-pee, but in Maine a plastic or even a metal barrel set on a post may work better. Also you must be sure the turf grass he lives on is smooth and that it is not some kind of wiry knurly tufted grass that he can get his cord tangled or wrapped up in. Tough turf grass can snag or "fowl" his cord so he really needs a smooth well groomed paddock.

Your hens will perfectly idolize you for this because it prevents him from chasing the hens all over Hell's Half Acre but he is available to mate with all of them, each in her own turn. Don't think that they won't come everyday to seek his affections, they will. Usually after 3:00 in the Afternoon. He is also in a place were he can still issue warnings about incoming raptors. Furthermore, it makes him easy for you to catch and pet so you can chill him out. Just make sure that all your movements are slow ones. I still fail to understand how anyone who hits and swipes at his or her rooster with a heavy warehouse broom can escape being flogged to death. If I was on that rooster's jury I would vote to acquit on grounds of self defense.

Has anyone of you ever stopped to consider how expensive it would be to build a 315 square foot pen for everyone of your chickens. I have, and it'll make your jaw drop. I also know one fellow who puts his brood hens on tie strings. When he hatches off a 42 egg still air incubator the peeps go to one hen on a cord who also has a good dry shelter. Then as they feel the need, each of the peeps can return to the hen to re-fill its little heat tank with mother's warmth.

I can't stress this to much! It is important with any housing system that you provide a proactive defense for all your fowl and that begins at your property line, not at the coop. A coop, pen, tractor or any other housing system is nothing more than a supermarket for any chicken predator that gains access to it. We are supposedly growing meat, egg, or show fowl here, not hawk, owl, and coyote bait. I know that sometimes it seems that way. Generally show birds will have every feather in place if kept on a cord. Those birds kept in a coop, pen, or stall will always have buggered up feet, skinned combs and broken, missing or mussed up feathers.




Observe how there isn't a feather out of place on this BR Blue, not even the two long sickle feathers. He thinks that he's the master of all that he surveys, and he looks it.

I guess after reading some of the comments I can begin to understand why GLTG folks keep their noses out of joint so much. I can begin to understand what they've put up with all these years.

 

[Foghorn Cogburn]

Awesome thread!!!!

There's nothing inhumane about it. Happy, healthy birds...and the girls get to do the choosing. Seems like folks would see it as being respectful to the rest of the flock, male or female, including the younger chickens.

 

[theoldguy]

Great answer and thanks for the not inhumane call.Chickengeorgeto. Good call and a nice bird

 

[Pooman]

I saw a show, the guy had approximately 100 roosters (he loved em apparently) all tied by the leg to their own little houses food and water.

The show was about all the racket 100 roosters in a paddock made driving the neighbours mental lol

 

[KGreene]

Sure it is, assuming you do your homework first.... I kept games for many years. Hens in the pens and free ranged and MANY roos on tie cords. I used 8' ft. of Paracord with leather straps. A two inch metal "O' ring on the anchor end over a 3/4" galvanized pipe (5' Ft. high), on top of which was a small t-pee. No tangling, inaccessible to predators (those smaller than black bears anyway). My birds were always healthy and happy.

Tie cords/tethers are a perfectly safe and humane way of keeping birds.... if done correctly.

 

[theoldguy]

Cool,people are so worried about it, my grand folks tethered chickens too. Just keep people out of your business . Its safe and it works.Thanks for the reply

 

[in2gamechicks]

Agreed. It is not always for the evil people do it is for the betterment of the birds!

 

[in2gamechicks]

Amen brother! Not all game raisers are fighters unless you think that is why we have them! Best bird on earth.