Missing rooster then poof…he reappeared!!

[YeeYee]

I opened my coop door the other morning, then shortly after I found gray feathers scattered through my yard. 1 out of 4 of my roosters, Karl, was missing. He was no where to be found all day and through the night, then miraculously appeared the next morning. Karl is (or was) the top rooster. There usually is not problem with fighting between the 4 due to the number of hens I have. However, I just witnessed my youngest rooster chasing Karl through the yard and him running for his life. This is his new roosting spot, seems to have been exiled from the coop farther back in the yard. Has anyone had a similar experience? I know, it is bizarre.

 

[sourland]

Not unusual for subordinates to team up to depose the top rooster. The pecking order is fluid with the lower ranked birds always looking for a chance to advance their position. Once deposed it is difficult if not impossible for a bird to regain his position.

 

[McChooky]

Poor fella!

 

[McChooky]

I rehomed one of my cockerels that liked to force my hens to mate (in mud holes, in a corner, on a rock ,it didn't matter). It wasn't so much what he did but how he did it. After I found an Ameraucana dead with her neck dangling over the edge of the dropping board I got rid of him.I suspect he pinned her down on the edge and suffocated her or broke her neck. A place on her lower back had the skin rubbed off but didn't have any blood on it(she already had feathers missing on her back)It appears he mated her even after she was dead and why the wound wasn't bleeding