Quotes and Thoughts for the Day

[COChix]

 

[COChix]

 

[Sydney Acres]

Still lurking, we have had some dog and rooster issues the past two day, plus I am not feeling so hot. Sadly we will have to cull one of our Buff Orph roo's as they had an all out 40 minute brawl (I reviewed the videos from the fight). I went out to bring them in from free range and found two completely bloody and exhausted roo's. Have no idea what started it, they grew up together and we haven't had any issues between them. They have never fought per se, I have seen the alpha chase the second in command off feed and during mating, but never a fight. I feel disheartened by this as the both are good roosters. I guess I was trying to live in some polyana world thinking two roos could co exists. We have multiple feeding and watering stations and our ratio is 23 hens to 2 roos.

I'm so sorry that the boys are giving you such grief. It can be so upsetting to even consider having to rehome a bird that you care about. Is it possible that this is just a temporary disagreement?

I had two cluchmate turkey toms fight for 2 days straight (!) before settling on a pecking order. When the fight was truly over, it was over and never revisited. They remained best friends thereafter.

I inherited 7 Croad Langshan LF chickens from my father-in-law about 7 years ago. They were 1-2 years old at the time, 5 hens and 2 roosters. They had lived in a 20X20 ft cage shared with 50 pigeons and 30 bantams, plus at least 15 other LF chickens. It was a hellhole! These 7 were the only ones left after raccoons spent months reaching through the wire and pulling the heads off their cagemates. They were never tamed down, and it took over an hour for my husband and niece to capture these 7 to put into carriers for transport. It took 3 days for my husband to drive them up from Los Angeles to (north of) Seattle. They were traumatized and exhausted when they arrived. They had never touched grass, had never seen snow, had never enjoyed the comforts of clean shavings in their house or clean straw in their run, and had never know the safety of a truly predator-proof enclosure. They arrived an hour before sunset on a day that the yard was covered with snow. I took their carriers into their run and let them out. They were terrified of everything -- the straw under their feet, the snow outside, the shavings, their house, and me. I finally got them to go through the pop door of their house, and the hens jumped up onto the top perch. But the thing that impressed me was the behavior of the roosters. Instead of perching, the two roosters partnered up to guard the door. (In this setup, the run is 6X12 feet, and a 3X4 foot house is inside the predator proof run. The pop door of the house is 8X11 inches and is left open at all times.) Each rooster laid down on the shavings, angled in such a way that he could see anything approaching the house along the distant wall, each bird responsible for the opposite direction to provide full coverage between the two of them. Four or five days later the snow had melted and I decided to let them free range in a 1/2 acre fenced yard. It took a while to convince them to come out of the run, but finally the dominant rooster ventured out. He walked around for about 30 minutes while talking to the others still in the pen. Eventually he gave them what I can only describe as the "all clear" signal and the hens came out single file, with the other rooster bringing up the rear. They had a busy day foraging all over the yard, but the dominant rooster remained in the front of the group, and the subordinate rooster remained in the back at all times. When it was time to go back into the run, the dominant rooster stayed with the hens, and the subordinate rooster went into the run, then into the house to check for any problems. He then signaled the "all clear," and the hens came in follow by the rooster. The subordinate rooster guarded the door while the hens and dominant rooster ate, and the dominant rooster watched the door while the hens perched and the subordinate rooster ate. Then they returned to their positions inside the house in front of the pop door.

This went on for 3-4 months, until the dominate rooster felt the situation was secure enough that he could join the hens up on the roost. The subordinate rooster began roosting after another 6 months or so. But when outside the run, the dominant rooster always was in the lead, and the subordinate rooster was always bringing up the rear, with the hens protected in the middle. It was impressive military precision coordinated between the two boys, always working together. Sometimes they fought, but it was minor and just to re-establish the chain of command. After a year, I would occasionally see the flock split into two small groups, a rooster together with a few hens, the two groups separated but always within sight of each other.

A few years ago a rat got into the pen. The two roosters returned to their coordinated guard duty for at least a month after the rat was killed by the cat.

Last year I opened the gate between their yard and my Dorking's yard so the flocks could join. The Dorking rooster was only one year old at the time. The dominant Langshan rooster and the young Dorking rooster has a "long talk." The Dorking rooster is now very respectful of the Langshans.

I wouldn't consider it a Pollyanna world to have 2 rooster with 23 hens. Lots of roosters get along well, once they agree on the dominant/submissive roles. It's just a matter of whether they can do that without seriously injuring each other, and how often they need to revisit that agreement.

If you decide that you can't keep them together, can you split the flock in half and give each rooster 11-12 hens?

 

[sumi]

Hey sumi, the BYC has informed all the game threads, that pictures that are not made by the person posting them, is breaking BYC rules. As of Feb.14 they will be locking them down. Is that going to affect this thread? The new rules are at a sticky note at top of games forums. I hope not, I love this forum!!

Thanks for the question! BYC has always had a rule that members will not to post any material that is a violation of copyright. It’s a rule that every member agreed to when joining BYC. Most of the images here were taken off the internet as commons and if any of these images are copyrighted or privately owned and the owner contacts us, we will remove them immediately.

 

[sumi]

Still lurking, we have had some dog and rooster issues the past two day, plus I am not feeling so hot. Sadly we will have to cull one of our Buff Orph roo's as they had an all out 40 minute brawl (I reviewed the videos from the fight). I went out to bring them in from free range and found two completely bloody and exhausted roo's. Have no idea what started it, they grew up together and we haven't had any issues between them. They have never fought per se, I have seen the alpha chase the second in command off feed and during mating, but never a fight. I feel disheartened by this as the both are good roosters. I guess I was trying to live in some polyana world thinking two roos could co exists. We have multiple feeding and watering stations and our ratio is 23 hens to 2 roos.

I'm so sorry

I had the same situation some time ago with 2 roosters that I loved and wanted to keep, but they did NOT want to co-exist peacefully. I ended up rehoming one when the fighting got out of control.

 

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[sumi]

 

[sumi]

 

[sumi]

 

[N F C]