Searin
In the Brooder
Hello, I am fully admitting that this is probably my fault. This is long because I think background is important. TLDR at the bottom.
This is our first time with chickens. We have 3 roosters. William, Yellow, and CharBleu. William is a mille fluer bantam, Yellow is some kind of meat bird (Cornish X?) that was labeled as a white leghorn, and CharBleu is a tailless easter egger. This concerns CharBleu and Yellow.
Background on Yellow.
He was always huge and we thought he was female until like 2 weeks ago when he started crowing. We also thought he was a white leghorn (WL), but the personality descriptions and pictures didn't match. Even though he had a big comb and waddles, WL females have that too. So, he was essentially a mystery breed to us. Lowkey, he still is. WL rooster and Cornish X match the most.
At that point we only had William as a rooster, but he never really seemed right. He never acted like the other chickens or even the other bantam (she's a Belgian D'uccle) so we weren't confident in his abilities as a rooster. And also he was much smaller than everyone else. Thinking we only had one rooster, we found another.
We bought CharBleu from a farm like 5 miles away because we live in the country and everyone is always getting rid of roosters. The previous owner raised him from an egg to 8 weeks and said he was very nice and sweet. At that time, my 9 (actually 8) girls were 7 and 9 weeks old. Great. We took him home, and I can admit I messed up here, threw him in with the girls after I sprayed some no peck on him. He had mini standoffs with a few ladies, everyone but Yellow backed down for the most part. We thought they were redrawing the lines for pecking order with CharBleu being top Rooster (William put up no fight), and Yellow being top hen. This would be great, we thought.
Two weeks later, Yellow crowed in front of me and I realized that CharBleu wasn't actually bad at crowing (he was, but not that bad), it was another rooster! This news shook the household. We kinda left them to it. It seems to be an escalating behavior, where they would face off and CharBleu would leave. We probably should have stopped it then. It stopped happening though, so we thought everything was good and they figured it out. They pretty much split the ladies in half. Nice.
About a week ago, we checked the run midday to find Yellow injured. His comb and the back of his head were bleeding. He got first aid, and went about his life. After that CharBleu started chasing him away from everyone. I should mention that they free range during the day (they only use the treed area, but have an entire acre to work with) and we have a coop of sorts that the 11 chickens sleep in . Technically its a run with nesting boxes attached. The nesting boxes were falling apart, so we sealed off that area and made them a shelter in the run. They have 3 sticks spanning 4 ft to roost on at night. CharBleu and his ladies roost on stick 3 (the highest stick) and Yellow and his ladies (and William) sleep in the shelter on the ground since Yellow cannot jump.
Last week, at around 630pm we found Yellow way far out. Like where they usually don't go. We walked him back to the coop and put CharBleu in the other coop. We had another one delivered on the other side of the treed area. For a few days, anytime he would show and aggression to ANY chicken, he went back to jail. This week we got CharBleu a dog crate so he could still be with everyone outside and in the run. For 2 days, he slept in the dog crate in the coop and stayed in it during free range outside. We let him out and he seemed to avoid Yellow and Yellow definitely avoided him. Great, it worked.
No it didn't. Yesterday CharBleu was crowing a lot around 5-6pm, we heard CharBleu crowing. That's normal. But it was a lot. Aaron found Yellow was in the front yard, where they don't go, on his back on top of his head looking scalped, feet in the air, with CharBleu running around him in a circle crowing. He flipped Yellow back on his feet and grabbed the rest of us, his comb was a pale purple and you could kinda see the veins in it. He was full on panting. Yellow was watered and bandaged and CharBleu went into the dog crate. CharBleu had chased Yellow from the trees to the front yard (about 120 ft) and flipped him. Yellow had a few broken pin feathers and a bit taken out of his comb, but he was okay. He was also overheated from the chase, he could have had a heart attack. Today, Yellow is okay, eating, drinking, walking around normally. CharBleu is in the dog crate outside the coop.
Yellow is a meat bird, so we will eventually eat him. But he was a pet first, so we want to wait and give him a decent life first.
TLDR: A rooster we thought was a hen (Yellow) is getting attacked by the new rooster (CharBleu). Like murder attack.
Is there anyway to get CharBleu to stop? I don't want to kill him because we need the him for when Yellow dies. Can I reintroduce them? Should they just have separate coops? Is this just puberty? Will he grow out of it? Is there anything I should look out for for Yellow?
Attached files are CharBleu and Yellow.
This is our first time with chickens. We have 3 roosters. William, Yellow, and CharBleu. William is a mille fluer bantam, Yellow is some kind of meat bird (Cornish X?) that was labeled as a white leghorn, and CharBleu is a tailless easter egger. This concerns CharBleu and Yellow.
Background on Yellow.
He was always huge and we thought he was female until like 2 weeks ago when he started crowing. We also thought he was a white leghorn (WL), but the personality descriptions and pictures didn't match. Even though he had a big comb and waddles, WL females have that too. So, he was essentially a mystery breed to us. Lowkey, he still is. WL rooster and Cornish X match the most.
At that point we only had William as a rooster, but he never really seemed right. He never acted like the other chickens or even the other bantam (she's a Belgian D'uccle) so we weren't confident in his abilities as a rooster. And also he was much smaller than everyone else. Thinking we only had one rooster, we found another.
We bought CharBleu from a farm like 5 miles away because we live in the country and everyone is always getting rid of roosters. The previous owner raised him from an egg to 8 weeks and said he was very nice and sweet. At that time, my 9 (actually 8) girls were 7 and 9 weeks old. Great. We took him home, and I can admit I messed up here, threw him in with the girls after I sprayed some no peck on him. He had mini standoffs with a few ladies, everyone but Yellow backed down for the most part. We thought they were redrawing the lines for pecking order with CharBleu being top Rooster (William put up no fight), and Yellow being top hen. This would be great, we thought.
Two weeks later, Yellow crowed in front of me and I realized that CharBleu wasn't actually bad at crowing (he was, but not that bad), it was another rooster! This news shook the household. We kinda left them to it. It seems to be an escalating behavior, where they would face off and CharBleu would leave. We probably should have stopped it then. It stopped happening though, so we thought everything was good and they figured it out. They pretty much split the ladies in half. Nice.
About a week ago, we checked the run midday to find Yellow injured. His comb and the back of his head were bleeding. He got first aid, and went about his life. After that CharBleu started chasing him away from everyone. I should mention that they free range during the day (they only use the treed area, but have an entire acre to work with) and we have a coop of sorts that the 11 chickens sleep in . Technically its a run with nesting boxes attached. The nesting boxes were falling apart, so we sealed off that area and made them a shelter in the run. They have 3 sticks spanning 4 ft to roost on at night. CharBleu and his ladies roost on stick 3 (the highest stick) and Yellow and his ladies (and William) sleep in the shelter on the ground since Yellow cannot jump.
Last week, at around 630pm we found Yellow way far out. Like where they usually don't go. We walked him back to the coop and put CharBleu in the other coop. We had another one delivered on the other side of the treed area. For a few days, anytime he would show and aggression to ANY chicken, he went back to jail. This week we got CharBleu a dog crate so he could still be with everyone outside and in the run. For 2 days, he slept in the dog crate in the coop and stayed in it during free range outside. We let him out and he seemed to avoid Yellow and Yellow definitely avoided him. Great, it worked.
No it didn't. Yesterday CharBleu was crowing a lot around 5-6pm, we heard CharBleu crowing. That's normal. But it was a lot. Aaron found Yellow was in the front yard, where they don't go, on his back on top of his head looking scalped, feet in the air, with CharBleu running around him in a circle crowing. He flipped Yellow back on his feet and grabbed the rest of us, his comb was a pale purple and you could kinda see the veins in it. He was full on panting. Yellow was watered and bandaged and CharBleu went into the dog crate. CharBleu had chased Yellow from the trees to the front yard (about 120 ft) and flipped him. Yellow had a few broken pin feathers and a bit taken out of his comb, but he was okay. He was also overheated from the chase, he could have had a heart attack. Today, Yellow is okay, eating, drinking, walking around normally. CharBleu is in the dog crate outside the coop.
Yellow is a meat bird, so we will eventually eat him. But he was a pet first, so we want to wait and give him a decent life first.
TLDR: A rooster we thought was a hen (Yellow) is getting attacked by the new rooster (CharBleu). Like murder attack.
Is there anyway to get CharBleu to stop? I don't want to kill him because we need the him for when Yellow dies. Can I reintroduce them? Should they just have separate coops? Is this just puberty? Will he grow out of it? Is there anything I should look out for for Yellow?
Attached files are CharBleu and Yellow.
