Neighbors Flock Now a Recognized Rival

[centrarchid]

This is first time in five years I have not continuously had a gamecock with harem based on the front porch of home. This may be causing a change with respect to ranging habits of flock owned by neighbor the north. Neighbor also appears to have more than doubled the size of his free-ranging flock. A portion of neighbors flock is made up of about six hens centered on a heavy set rooster that appears to have some oriental game in him. Today this group penetrated about 30 feet into my front yard. I do not know if it has occurred before since I am usually at work at time observation was made. What alerted me to situation was that my dogs that serve very effectively as my poultry protectors got all riled up looking at the flock in the front yard. Not initially seeing the birds, I initially thought somebody pulled in with strange car. When I looked out I could see the situation. Having the birds come over is not desirable as the male could mate with free-ranging pullets of cockyard used as broodies or pick fights with caged males that are all too ready to destroy themselves fighting through wire,


The game now is to repel the neighbors flock. My dogs will not and should not do it, they simply go out and walk among birds to verify ID. I am considering using the gamecock most recently used to sire experimental embryos currently being incubated by pullet in garage. After nearly two weeks absence from front yard / garage area (he was penned in cockyard) he immediately resumed his patrolling of territory and very quickly went to confirm location of brooding pullet. What was really cool is they communicated by sound without line of site. He also went directly to same roost shortly their after.


Hopefully, today when neighbors flock begins to approach my released rooster will repel them by crowing. If that does not work then he may have to fight strange rooster and drive him back. The latter situation may backfire if neighbor’s hens shift the allegiance to my gamecock thus resulting in birds not mine using resources intended for this year’s cohort of young birds.


Cool Observations So Far
1) My dogs recognize neighbor’s birds by sight even when they come onto our property.
2) Gamecock immediately readopted his territory after a 2-week absence.
3) Gamecock and pullet communicated very quickly without him trying to cover her and thus damaging embryos she is incubating.

 

[aart]

Can't wait to hear what happens.

 

[centrarchid]

Something else is also interesting. I have a lot more birds than any two neighbors combined. Mine free-range usually between two and four acres especially early in the season. My neighbors' flocks free-range much larger areas. My birds stay largely in core of my property while neighbors flocks concentrate on perimeter of their properties. I will show pictures later to elaborate.

 

[centrarchid]

My patch that has cover areas interspersed with prime foraging provided by diverse mixture of legumes / edible grasses and abundant arthropod assemblage. Soon a 150 birds will be all but invisible as they spend their day in it. The birds also work the entire area with no areas left untouched within a given day. Area depicted represents about 3 acres. Another 3 acres to left are also foraged but birds their are largely different flocks. Cover is still not heavy enough to provide cover from hawks but that will change in about three weeks is weather stays warm.

Neighbors patch that is must more pleasant to look at and mow but seems to have large areas largely avoided by his flock. His birds would rather walk 800 feet to my place for eats than forage in his roughly 5 acre field dominating right side of image. His cover is dominated by builds and automobiles. Forages are dominated by a red clover and cool season grasses, mostly fescue. His birds spend a disproportionate time in heavy vegetation of roadway to left. Cover is very heavy there and they spend a lot of time scratching up leaves for insects and worms. They approach my house / yard by walking up the road. They move relatively rapidly as they do.

I am standing in same location for both photographs which is our mutual property boundry. This is roughly the area I want both flocks to recognize.

 

[aart]

You have obviously allowed for better forage and over areas.....no wonder neighbors flock comes to visit.
So now question is....will your flock keep them off your land, protecting their own territory from neighbors flock?

 

[centrarchid]

I am very much afraid we can whip the neighbors rooster which will respect boundary there after but he has a excess of hens. My rooster will likely welcome neighbors hens where they will come to lay eggs and at some point switch to roosting on my front porch. I hope we can repel neighbor's rooster far enough so his hens will not interact with my rooster. Harems dynamics of neighbors flock are likely to be a limitation. For this to work, either neighbor needs more flock masters or fewer hens.

 

[centrarchid]

Experiment may or may not have worked as planned. About same time I starting releasing game rooster the neighbors flock contracted ranging habits and went another direction. This may be the result of a dog attack they suffered causing loss of two hens. My rooster then shifted his range towards west where he bumps heads with Missouri Dominique harem master on other side of creek. When the two come together my dogs rush over and attempt to break it up causing dom to run. Then game ooster walks to far side of doms turf and tries to fight other games in pens.

 

[aart]

Maybe time will tell more of the story.....maybe not.

 

[centrarchid]

Neighbors flock has been confined within poultry netting, darn it.

Still having drama between gamerooster with territory centered on house and Missouri Dominique rooster centered on pasture to east. They have a mutual territory boundary that us usually respected but the do is particularly inclined to trespass which results in Slugger chasing dom and his hens off his turf. Chase usually ends about 20 feet past creek where dom gets his courage. Then both males stand tall and go through a bout of crowing. About twice daily they also get into an outright fight which now involves minimal contact, rather just a lot of show and is kind of pretty. Then both birds walk back to center of respective territories to bond with harems. Normally gamerooster would not let up but dogs have finally educated game that fight gets him harassed by dogs as well.


Very similar engagements are going on between mockingbirds.

 

[centrarchid]

The gamecock got himself into a bind this morning. One of the dom's four hens has started checking out the gamecock and his territory and is now sneaking away from dom to be closer to house. Gamecock is capitalizing on this and has been trying to point out nesting sites. He messed up and got stuck in a partially unrolled length of 2 x 4 weld wire fencing laying on ground.. Gamecock crawled in doing display and could not back out. During next half hour or so the dom rooster and his entire harem came into front yard. When game was released by me he promptly drove the visitors back to their territory. Fencing will be used to make compost bin to help control such problems.