new rooster / first chicken

[DCortez]

Stumbled across our "first chicken" yesterday, a stray rooster that was running around on our property. Managed to trap him, can provide the long story for a chuckle, and make him comfortable.

My question is how long should I "jail" him before letting him out? We'd like to keep him.

Here are a couple of pics. We also bought him show bird feed, big ole bag of meal worms, and seed treats.

 

[TheChickenGirl1]

Would you like to let him free range? If so I would recommend to have a little shelter for him at night so predators can't get to him, and make sure you are supervising when he is roaming around to make sure nothing snatches him. To let him free range without running away, I would keep him in whatever shelter you are planning to use for him for a couples of weeks, maybe even a month to show him where 'home' is. What I did with my chickens, is I let them out for about 10-20 minutes everyday and sat with them to make sure they didn't run away, then after a while I just started leaving them out for longer and longer amounts of time everyday, but I kept them in for about 3 weeks before I let them go out of their own. Hope I helped!

 

[DCortez]

Thanks, TCG1, I'll jail him for a month. He'll be happier, safer, and spoiled.

 

[KWeist]

Normally when I get new ones I lock them up a couple days then let them out. They normally follow the others back at "bed time"if he's the only one u probably should go with the liner time period