So I have a young rooster about 8 months old. I think he is stressing my hens out. Of my 6 hens only 1 is laying for the past 2 months. 1 hen is our 2 year old female Marigold, the rest are all between 8 months-1 year and started laying, and well. Once my roo grew bigger and more mature he really starting chasing all the hens in the morning, so as a result none of them want to come out of the coop first when we open it up every morning. Rocky, this rooster isn't really aggressive towards people, but he is starting to get brave. He will turn and dodge towards you but I will try to catch him and he goes running. I will grab him (he flaps and squawks like crazy) and I will carry him around for a while. So FOR NOW he is frightened of people.
So my concern is the hens don't seem to like him much. They will still walk up to him when he clucks, and eat food near him, and they don't have any feathers missing on their back and I don't see him REALLY aggressively bullying them. But he will grab their necks and pin them to be mean sometimes, different than the normal jump on to mate. But the females really don't seem as happy with him there. They seem to want to hide out and avoid him more.
And what's worse is our older female Marigold passed the other day
. This past week she seemed to hang out in the hen house more often, and didn't seem herself. We looked at her and she didn't seem egg bound or anything, just lethargic. We let her eat and drink and she hobbled back into the hen house later on. She has always been a dominant female too. We didn't think she would die, she just didn't seem well. When we came home the other day she was sooo lethargic there wasn't much we could do for her anymore
Does anybody think that Marigolds death is related to him stressing them out? And them not laying is from him? We removed him from the girls, and he is now in a 10X10 dog kennel on his own. We don't know what else to do. Could my flock have caught something? We lost Marigolds sister about 2 months ago. But she was gurgly and sounded sick. None of the other hens are gurgling... They seem healthy, they just seem stressed and aren't laying.
So my concern is the hens don't seem to like him much. They will still walk up to him when he clucks, and eat food near him, and they don't have any feathers missing on their back and I don't see him REALLY aggressively bullying them. But he will grab their necks and pin them to be mean sometimes, different than the normal jump on to mate. But the females really don't seem as happy with him there. They seem to want to hide out and avoid him more.
And what's worse is our older female Marigold passed the other day
Does anybody think that Marigolds death is related to him stressing them out? And them not laying is from him? We removed him from the girls, and he is now in a 10X10 dog kennel on his own. We don't know what else to do. Could my flock have caught something? We lost Marigolds sister about 2 months ago. But she was gurgly and sounded sick. None of the other hens are gurgling... They seem healthy, they just seem stressed and aren't laying.
Last edited: