Morning all!
About a month or so ago, I bought some chickens from a guy who was being forced to move. Several hens of unknown breeds - most were OEGs, but there were some that were different and I have NO idea what they are. I bought one rooster that my daughter fell in love with (I didn't really want an OEG rooster). We brought the rooster home and he flew out of the transport cage before we could get him into the coop. Roo was GONE! Daughter was devastated, but I was kind of relieved - he just really wasn't what I wanted. I went back a few days later to get another load of hens and got a really nice rooster - big and beautiful. I thought he was RIR, but the guy said he wasn't. I know nothing about chickens, so I don't argue.
Anyway, we did notice that the original OEG rooster was still hanging around. We started throwing a bit of scratch out for him, and he would come up and eat it, but we coudn't get withing 50 feet of him before he would fly away. He could fly pretty well for a roo that was raised and kept in a cage! Long story short, roo was sitting on top of some round bales yesterday. Daughter managed to sneak up on him and caught him just as he took off. Roo is safely tucked away in a transport cage. Daughter says she is going to build him a little coop of his own and wants to put a few hens in with him. I was okay with that. I have two roos in my coup right now. They get along amazingly well but somehow I don't think that the three roos would get along as well???
I noticed this morning that the recaptured roo has a couple of black lesions on his wattle. Just the two. He does't act sick or anything - healthy appetite, lots crowing this morning - he's right outside our window. I LOVED the crowing! He had the grace to wait until it started getting light outside, so it wasn't too early to be getting up.
I am glad we didn't put the roo straight into the coup. I don't want to put any of my hens in a coop with him until I know he isn't sick. I'm going to try to find my digital camera and take some pix. I'll post it in the diseases section and see if it's anything I need to worry about. I have been through enough with my flock lately - bought some pullets from a local breeder that would up having some sort of respiratory infection that has killed about a third of them. I don't want to add anything else to the stress!
