New chicken owner with a rooster

[melehe24]

Hello,
To answer your original post....Yes, if you want to keep your Rooster in his own pen beside the hens, he will be fine...
You wont get chicks if you collect the eggs daily, if you choose to keep him with the hens?
He wont be lonely, but will pace the fence to get back with the hens...
Totally your call...Only you can decide what will work in your certain situation....

Good luck

Thank you, I appreciate your input

 

[melehe24]

Roosters are a mess but protect the flock..it's a hormonal teenager. If over a little time it gets worse than I would rehome. But if your daughter can handle him that's good.

It is possible that he is just being a "hormonal teenager". What looks to me like really aggressive behavior could very well by typical rooster behavior.

 

[melehe24]

My two cents:

If you are separating him during the winter time, he's going to be a little colder than the girls, as he does not have other chickens to roost with. Just something to think about.

As far as loneliness and them being social animals. I separated my RIR rooster from his ladies when the number of hens had decreased and he was running them ragged...missing feathers...less laying. This rooster had been living with bumblefoot for about a year (I know, my bad, but this was before I was comfortable doing surgery on a chicken and I didn't know enough to deal with it). He was not struggling with the disease, as he seemed very happy and not stressed, and he was a good rooster, to hens and humans. About two weeks after I pulled him to another coop/run, he dropped dead. There was NO way a predator got in. He was just dead on the ground. I wondered...did he die from loneliness? Maybe having the hens was the only thing that kept the bumblefoot from really getting aggressive? And once he lost his hens...who knows. Something else to think about.

Thank you for this info. Definitely something for us to think about. We would be devastated if he died.

 

[Kdunn222]

I have had 4 roosters with variety of behavior. White Leghorn was more aggressive but smart. Rir answers to his name and sweet. Duccle varies. Than silky rir mix not aggressive but attempts to mount anything and is about 4-5 months. Mounting in general looks not great. Roosters can be not nice I have noticed a difference in the breed's and time spent with them. Thanks if aggressive to you there was a post on knocking him down a couple knots. I am not an expert just know how mine act.

 

[dancoyben]

Question about an issue I'm having, i have a hen that won't give into the advances of my two rosters. Every time the rosters try to mate with her the end up fighting and she's gradually losing her front feathers and is looking really disheveled. What can i do if anything separating them is ok temporarily but long term isn't an option, any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[Mrs. K]

Dancoyben - how many birds do you have? How old are your birds? How much space do you have?

On one hand, birds, especially birds more than a year old, this time of year, are headed into molt. Their feathers are old, and are beginning to fall out to make room for new feathers. So it is not uncommon for hens and roosters to look ragged this time of year. A week ago, my rooster was down to one tail feather. But the new ones are growing.

On the other hand, I may be misinterpreting, if you have 2 roosters and 1 hen, this is not going to work. The problem will get worse and worse.

If your roosters are fighting, I would be culling one or both roosters. You need a pretty fair size set up to keep two roosters with a flock, as in about 20-25 head of hens. Often times what happens is people get a couple of chicks, and wind up with 2 roosters and 1 hen, and they hope that if they are raised together, it will work, and it does not. Roosters will not stay nice.

If you do have a large flock, and only this one bird is getting beat up, you could just cull her. However, I think your roosters will find some other bird to fight over, aggressive behavior often starts out on one bird, but generally just gets worse and worse.

Mrs K