Minnesota!

[Bogtown Chick]

Joyfulkeeper: Are the kids wearing red, hot pinks, oranges in their clothing? Those weird roos get more ornery with the brighter colors around here. Also if we're down by the coop "his territory" sometimes he doesn't like that. Buggers. Theres a few good threads on here for dealing with a Roo who wants to fight. I think some days are worse than others. Usually mornings mine's a little more feisty too. Afternnoons he's a little more zen.

It's tough when you really like them...but that kind of behavior makes them shortlisted for freezer camp, IMO. Many nice roos out there.

 

[joyfulkeeper]

Actually, two of my boys wore red jackets all winter and Mr. Roo was fine with them. Maybe I should have them wear red again.

Today my ten year old son was playing outside and was trying to stay away from the roo and hens. Apparently Mr Roo was stalking him and attacked. He has now been banished to the chicken tractor!

I wish I could process him this weekend, but I promised a homeschool mom that she could hatch some of my eggs in our incubator for a science project. I am testing the bator with duck eggs now so it wont be available for 26 days. I'll have to keep the roo long enough to get her fertile eggs.

How long will the hens stay fertile without the roo?

 

[Minniechickmama]

Ok, thanks. The eggs have been in for 48 hrs now so I think I might weigh a couple to see if they are on track for moisture loss.

We candled the eggs under our broody yesterday and all 8 are looking great!

So, our rooster has turned mean.

He was fine until about 6 wks ago, but now he has attacked all of my kids. No one was afraid of him and even my 10 year old would calmly pick him up and show dominance by holding his head down by his comb after an attack. Nothing the kids have tried has worked and the aggression is getting worse. From the reading I've done, it seems we did everything well to not have this happen. Maybe because of the long confining winter and genetics? Anything else we might try other than freezer camp?

Freezer camp. Don't delay or you may end up with someone being hurt badly, especially with kids. Not worth it. There are always people with extra roosters. I have 3 I would get rid of if any one needed. This time of year the tend to get a bit bolder, but to be attacked that much, not worth the effort of correcting.
It is genetic too many times, which is why if a rooster turns bad, he is gone. I won't breed a meany.

 

[mnchicrancher]

Greetings y'all. In in dodge county. This is my first season raising chickens. Currently have a dozen Cornish rocks and a dozen reds from tsc.

 

[jbenson]

Actually, two of my boys wore red jackets all winter and Mr. Roo was fine with them. Maybe I should have them wear red again.

Today my ten year old son was playing outside and was trying to stay away from the roo and hens. Apparently Mr Roo was stalking him and attacked. He has now been banished to the chicken tractor!

I wish I could process him this weekend, but I promised a homeschool mom that she could hatch some of my eggs in our incubator for a science project. I am testing the bator with duck eggs now so it wont be available for 26 days. I'll have to keep the roo long enough to get her fertile eggs.

How long will the hens stay fertile without the roo?

I read it was like 3-4 weeks. When I separate into breeding pens by breed (they often get to run free during the summer so my breeding pen can be a grow out pen), I wait more than 4 weeks before I start collecting for hatching, just to be safe.

 

[jbenson]

Ok, thanks. The eggs have been in for 48 hrs now so I think I might weigh a couple to see if they are on track for moisture loss.

We candled the eggs under our broody yesterday and all 8 are looking great!

So, our rooster has turned mean.

He was fine until about 6 wks ago, but now he has attacked all of my kids. No one was afraid of him and even my 10 year old would calmly pick him up and show dominance by holding his head down by his comb after an attack. Nothing the kids have tried has worked and the aggression is getting worse. From the reading I've done, it seems we did everything well to not have this happen. Maybe because of the long confining winter and genetics? Anything else we might try other than freezer camp?

I had one that was attacking me each time I went in to feed and water for about a month (before that he was a totally nice roo). After a couple flying roo attacks, I decided I was not going to have it. So each time I went in, I would put the bottom of my boot at him to make him back off. I cleaned the coop a couple weeks ago, deep spring cleaning, and he didn't attack at all, but was pretty skittish. Today, was coop cleaning day again and he was still a bit skittish, but I wanted to check them all for mites and the like and he wasn't super happy about being picked up and held, but he let me and did not attack at all. Even let me use the dog nail clippers to trim his spurs (I have taken to doing this to try to save the feathers on my gals from getting torn up and so far it's starting to work - feathers are growing back and looking better. If he hadn't chilled out, he'd either be headed for freezer camp or given away to someone with a farm.

 

[jbenson]

You know what's awesome - warm sunny weather on the day you plan as coop cleaning day. I deep cleaned it 2 weeks ago to scrub out the winter funk (and boy was it funky with the flock refusing to go out in the snow - they really need the extra space and fresh air to be happy all winter.) Cleaned it today before it got funky again. Next coop projects will be a new expanded covered run that I can wrap in plastic for winter to coax them out on days when it's not Polar Vortex cold and some isolation pens (want to be able to isolate injured birds somewhere other than my basement brooders should something happen and perhaps isolate the roos when trying to socialize the flock to new chicks - I always get a little worried the roo will get aggressive, but if I can sneak the new members of the flock in and add the roo back once everyone else has accepted them, I find the roo doesn't notice as much).

 

[mnhomestead]

I got my first Muscovy egg today! It was a beautiful olive green color!

 

[sn0wwhite]

Greetings y'all. In in dodge county. This is my first season raising chickens. Currently have a dozen Cornish rocks and a dozen reds from tsc.

Welcome!

Thanks all of you for the kind welcome!

Any thoughts on best ways to keep the coop cosy in our crazy winter months up here. Want to plan for next year by building a good coop now. Thanks for any thoughts!

Abbey

Hi Abbey, and welcome!

I'm in Burnsville and I built the Wichita Coop but didn't use any insulation. My coop is very close to my house though and protected by it on the North and West sides. I did use a heat panel in the hen house and on the worst days hung a heat lamp in the run (that was covered with shower curtain panels) so they could huddle by it if they wanted. Everyone seems to have made it through fine and I'm really happy with this coop design.

 

[jbenson]

Crazy strong frizzle genes at my house. So my frizzled light sussex bantie roo is in the main pen with the mixed ladies and the breeding Ameraucana/Araucana banties (they have their matching roo). So far hatching, I haven't seen much evidence that he's getting action with the A/A ladies (he brings feathered shanks and slightly larger chicks to the mix). This past hatch, 2 from blue eggs hatched with feathered shanks out of seven (the other five have slate colored clean shanks as I would expect breeding A/A to A/A. ) And what do you know, BOTH of the feathered shank chicks are frizzled (just confirmed this morning now that their wings are in far enough to tell). Hoping they might end up being feather sexable - if true, the very prettiest of the two is a cockrel (which usually holds true, the most colorfully patterned chicks tend to be boys) and the other a pullet. We'll see. I might try to keep them until they are sexable cause pullets from this crossing should also be green layers, maybe even mint green (light brown gene daddy over blue/green gene mama).

DH wants me to sell them all, but there are a couple I am going to mysteriously not sell (you can't sell them if you don't show them to anybody who comes to buy chicks

).