Looking for a rooster to protect the hens - what breed?

[Egghead_Jr]

It's a reality that some roosters will fend off or fight to death predators. It's their job if they're worth their salt as alpha.

Personal experience of mine was with one of my Plymouths fending off and losing to a large male skunk as the hens got to the coop. His neck and chest had quite the patch of blood by the time I got there to chase off and later shoot the skunk.

Granted mine was in a pen at the time but am confident if ranging he'd have confronted a predator long enough for the hens to get away. If that predator was a dog or sorts would have been first to die.

 

[centrarchid]

I get some measurable protection from roosters that I think is reliable enough to justify their use. In my area keeping chicks out alone makes for hawk bait and repeated losses. Having chicks hen raised helps until chicks are about five weeks old but after that hens provide little protection. Rooster on other hand will provide protection to juveniles from hawks until juveniles are a good 12 weeks or more old. Roosters I use are game and only one can be out at a time. Rooster may distract other predators but are not effective protection form those which requires other methods such as cover and dogs (poultry guarding). Hawks like Coopers Hawks are hard for dog to stop when chicks are targeted because hawk snatches and flies off to kill chick in tree where dog cannot get to it. Rooster moves with chicks and readily confronts hawk to stop it and commotion usually brings dog in seconds later.


The rooster use works only on small scale for me. When I have much larger subflocks (> 30 individuals) in a cohort the single rooster bit does not work. I will be exploring the use of multiple American Dominique roosters for that challenge.


This year I have lost no young birds to predators, mostly due to dogs but rooster certainly provided some protection which we witnessed a couple times with Coopers Hawk that works property after songbirds..


Roosters are not reliable against mammals, especially at night. Nor do they give their life ever in my experience which started back in the 1970's. Losses are due to miscalculation or rooster being slowest bird on the ground.

 

[MzPlacedHippie]

My Roos are still less than a year old. I've seen them sound the alarm for hawks, stray dogs, and haggles of crows & jays. I've even seen the two of them put themselves between the girls and a snake (boy was that a ruckus). My son witnessed one of them dash out into the middle of a group of blue jays and chase them away. This is just my personal experience so far. I am glad I made the decision.

 

[shmccarthy]

I've only heard of a few roosters that will protect the flock. Even then, it's mostly the rooster trying to fight off the predator while the rest of the flock gets time to hide or get away. The rooster may win, it may not. With my roosters, they have served very well for alarming. They make a noise anytime any kind if bird, large or small flies over and the hens are notified that way. I have seen my roosters, on multiple occasions alarm for a hawk and stand still while the hens run and hide (usually into bushes or the coop if it's nearby) and the rooster is always the last to go hide. A rooster will stand no chance against virtually any raccoon, probably not against possum either. They may distract it or somehow scare it, but it will not win in a fight against one. The best thing they would be able to do for the flock, provided they are a good rooster, is alarm or possibly distract a predator so the hens can get to safety.