Poor bloody rooster, need advice

[lbgmama]

Hi, we have a flock of 15 hens and a silver spangled hamburg rooster. Yesterday my son noticed that his tail was bloody. When I checked on him, I was surprised to see that it seemed like his tail feathers were pulling out, I could see alot of the base of them, and there was quite a bit of dark blood around it and dripping down. The hens were picking at him quite a bit, definately exacerbating the problem. My problem is, I don't know the cause of the blood. I didn't know hens to go after a rooster like that. There is no sign of a predator entering the hen house or pen. Just wondering if anyone has any info on a situation like this? We are sort of new to the chicken game. Thanks....

 

[nzpouter]

isolate, it could be feather pecking/ canibalism... cause can be boredom or lacking something in the diet.

They will get even worse when there's blood involved.

 

[Mahonri]

First off,

So glad you are here!

Sounds like your roo is HEN PECKED!

(I hear it happens in homo sapiens too)

You'll have to watch... it's most likely just one or two of the hens that are doing it.

How long as the roo been with the hens?

A better ratio of roo to hen would be one roo to 10 hens, so if you cull the offenders, things should settle down and he won't be getting his hiney kicked (pecked) by bully hens.

 

[lbgmama]

Thanks, I did separate him from the ladies, left him outside last night with them in the house. Was fine until 4:30 am when he started crowing. I felt bad about the neighbor thing, so I put him in the henhouse. I was hoping that the blood would have clotted up and be less attractive to the hens. Is this normal? Do I have a wimpy rooster?
Maybe I'll just let him free range for a while.

 

[Judy]

See if you can figure out who is doing the pecking/feather pulling. If you isolate the peckers for a week or so, then put them back in, they will then be at the bottom of the pecking order.

You might have to remove the roo for a while to let him heal. They will certainly be attracted by his blood to peck him more. Just keep in mind that when you try to put him back, he will be at the bottom of the order then.

 

[lbgmama]

Interesting! I guess I thought that as the rooster, he would automatically be at the top. How sexist of me!