Problem Rooster - what to do?

[ChicoChickens]

When we moved to our new place last spring we discovered it came with a couple of free range roosters. Since then we bought ten chicks of our own and have raised them as free range. We ended up with 9 hens and 1 rooster which would be perfect except that one of the two pre-existing roosters has decided to make the hens his own and continual chases off our rooster, Henry. Henry has just started growing in his spurs and has no courage when it comes to this older rooster. We've tried to catch the offending rooster, who we call Ricky, but he is a wiley little guy and very fast. I wouldn't miss him in the least but don't know how to get rid of him or solve the problem. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[bheila]

Do you want to give him away or just cull him? Maybe you can catch him at night when he is roosting. We had that problem when 2 of our roos were competing for our flock of girls. So we got rid of one of them and then of coarse the one that was left decided that he wanted to start attacking my son. So he ended up as soup. Go figure. Now we have 10 rooster who all get along.

 

[Pumpkinpup]

Catching him on the roost after he's settled in is a very good idea! That is what I would try to do.

 

[ChicoChickens]

Personally I wouldn't mind turning him into soup! The problem with trying to catch him while roosting is that he roosts way up in the trees and he has all of our hens doing the same thing! When we can catch the hens we put them in the chicken coop, especially now that it's starting to rain. Today we were actually chasing him around the yard trying to catch him but that old devil just tired us out! He's a white rhode island red and those are fast!! I wish I knew someone with a bbgun or a bow and arrow... then it would be rooster stew... muahaha!

 

[bheila]

Too bad you don't live closer I have a pellet gun I use on the raccoons here. Maybe you could get a fishing net and corner him. I got so sick of trying to catch the chickens and I finally got a big long handled net. I never chase them around anymore. I just throw some scratch out and snag them.