Rooster Breed Advice needed

[Folly's place]

I have zero experience with rose comb RIRs, but the hatchery single comb RIR cockerels were not nice! I've had over a dozen SS cockerels, from two different sources, and half of them were nice, and the others were human aggressive. If you get a nice one they are wonderful!
My white Chantecler cockerels have all be very good boys, although I've only had about a dozen so far. Lovely birds and no frost bitten combs!
I have no experience with any of the others on your list.
Keep several, and sort them out over time, at least several months.
Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

For your neighbor with their stated goals I'd go Redcap or Cream Legbar based on size. You gave some goals for your neighbor so I have something to base a recommendation on.

What are your goals? Why do you want a rooster? Is egg color or size of the bird for butchering important? How about feather color/pattern? Are you planning on hatching chicks?

I tend to agree with Chickassan and Aart, breed is not a good indicator of behavior. I'll tell you why. If you read enough posts on here you can find tremendously great roosters of any breed, you can also find horrible roosters of any breed. This includes Silkies, Orpington, Barred Rock, Marans, and RIR's. For example, the only purebred human aggressive rooter I ever had was a Speckled Sussex. My experience was different from a couple of the previous posters. I did have a mixed breed rooster that was aggressive toward my chicken sitter but she was afraid of him. I never had a problem with him.

There is always the debate of nature or nurture. How much of their behavior is due to genetics and how much is how they are raised? I believe both contribute but the genetic part is not due to breed but instead strain. Some people seem to believe that every chicken of a certain breed is identical world-wide. I don't find that to be even close to correct. I occasionally get several cockerels from a hatchery when I want to bring in new blood. One time I raised 18 Buff Rock cockerels from the same hatchery. I ate 17 and kept one as my flock master. There was a tremendous difference in size, rate of maturity, and behaviors between them and these were hatched from the same flock.

Each hatchery or breeder has someone selecting which birds get to breed. If they select for certain traits those traits get enhanced, whether physical or behavioral. If they select against a certain trait then that trait is reduced in future generations. Broodiness is a good example. If you purposely do not hatch eggs from hens that go broody in a very few generations you have a flock where any hens hardly ever go broody. If you select replacement chickens from hatching eggs from hens that go broody in a few generations you can have a flock where the hens often go broody. I once kept a rooster from a hen that went broody and the next generation had a lot of hens that went broody.

I don't know if you got your chickens from a hatchery or a breeder. In general, hatcheries are not going to select for or against aggressive roosters. They are selecting for other traits so you can get different results. Some breeders actively select for behaviors but many don't. It depends on what their goals are. One former member bred RIR's for show but he also selected for behavior. It would hurt him to read all the bad-mouthing about RIR's on here but he realized they were not talking about his RIR's. They were talking about RIR's from a different source. He was also upset that more RIR breeders did not use behaviors as a criteria. He was passionate about his RIR's.

There is another big problem in selecting a male to keep from a flock like you have. I face it too. As they go through puberty one male will rise to the top in the battle for flock dominance. A good flock master has certain duties, including keeping peace in his flock. So he suppresses the behaviors of the other males. This can take a while as they go through puberty and mature at different rates but one will eventually emerge. If you remove the one on top another will emerge. His behaviors can totally change if he becomes the boss. Also, if you remove the subordinates the one on top's behaviors can change as his competition is removed. Or he can change some as he matures. Often these changes are for the better but not always. I don't always get it right.

So what can you do? I've made it sound impossible. My first suggestion is to decide on your goals. Then remove the ones that don't measure up. With my 18 Buff Rocks it was pretty easy to get to my top three. Then it got rough but I was able to make a decision.

In my opinion this is a challenging thing to do. You are talking about behaviors and those are nebulous. They can change as circumstances change. I tend to select early maturing cockerels as I find these are more likely to have the personality to win the hens over just based on their self-confidence and magnificence while later maturing ones may be more prone to using force. Buy this doesn't say anything about them being human aggressive.

I wish you luck. Most do turn out OK but you never know.

 

[Acre4Me]

What are your goals? Why do you want a rooster? Is egg color or size of the bird for butchering important? How about feather color/pattern? Are you planning on hatching chicks?

Goals:
1.Overall goal is to provide educational experience for chicken loving tween in 4-H. So, many breeds right now bc good to become familiar with a variety of breeds and behaviors. Includes handling rooster, and seeing flock dynamics.

2. Eggs and Egg Color: We want a variety of colors in our basket. So far we have blue, green (light and medium colors), brown (light to medium). We want chickens that produce consistently, but not necessarily like a leghorn, so 4-5/week/bird is good. With a Maran rooster, we could possibly get olive eggs...if we hatch out chicks from Maran over Legbar, for example.

3. Protection: Our current rooster is alert, and calls for the girls for treats, and also for protection - tells them to hide, etc.

4. Chicks: Maybe. We aren't there yet to hatch them. Currently are happy buying chicks. But, might try some to get OE type.

5. Eventually: we will settle on a few breeds, most likely. It could be that we have a laying flock of a variety of breeds or non-breeds (like EE) for those colorful eggs. We may create a breeding pen for purebred something or other that we determine we like. But we are not there yet.

6. Spouse wants a more visually colorful rooster. Our BJG is handsome, but all black (except red comb/wattles of course).


Current Male is nearly 16 months old. He has come after the legs of my spouse and I, although once did try to fly up towards me (neck feathers flared) while I was standing on the coop deck and he was standing on the ground, however, that time I was holding the orange snow shovel that he hates (easy to use and toss around the coop bedding). happily, leaves tween alone. Lately I've been holding a garden stake when I go in - it is a piece of rebar with a metal triangle welded to it at the bottom. Rooster has bitten it several times, and does not like to bite rebar, and is learning to leave me alone when I have it in my hand. I've never gone after him with it, nor hit him, I just decided to hold it vertically in front of me when entering the pen, and I've given him the opportunity to decide if he thinks its a threat (as an extension of me)... Which he was doing for quite awhile and would reach out and bite it once or twice each time. I'm hoping to get him to get past all the hormones of teenage hood. Since BJG are slow to mature, I think he has been hitting that difficult stage later than many males. I would like to keep him for a while longer, but not if he keeps treating me like the enemy. I think he could be good to be flock leader while 1-2 of the young males are growing up and hitting puberty. BJG are known to be docile, so I would like to keep him if possible, but his moderate aggression concerns me, and I am hoping it is a teenage, hormonal thing. My tween wants to keep him too, another reason to try to keep him, if possible.

We have a livestock auction in the area, so some of the current straight run chicks will end up there.

 

[Ridgerunner]

1.Overall goal is to provide educational experience for chicken loving tween in 4-H. So, many breeds right now bc good to become familiar with a variety of breeds and behaviors. Includes handling rooster, and seeing flock dynamics.

I don't see where breed matters in this.

2. Eggs and Egg Color: We want a variety of colors in our basket. So far we have blue, green (light and medium colors), brown (light to medium). We want chickens that produce consistently, but not necessarily like a leghorn, so 4-5/week/bird is good. With a Maran rooster, we could possibly get olive eggs...if we hatch out chicks from Maran over Legbar, for example.

If you buy chicks then the rooster doesn't matter. Buy females. There is no one rooster that will give you all these colors over all these hens if you hatch chicks and keep pullets. You need to know what is more important to you. If you use a Marans rooster you can get darker eggs but could easily lose light blue or light brown.

3. Protection: Our current rooster is alert, and calls for the girls for treats, and also for protection - tells them to hide, etc.

I don't see where breed matters in this.


4. Chicks: Maybe. We aren't there yet to hatch them. Currently are happy buying chicks. But, might try some to get OE type.

If you are not hatching the you don't need a rooster.


5. Eventually: we will settle on a few breeds, most likely. It could be that we have a laying flock of a variety of breeds or non-breeds (like EE) for those colorful eggs. We may create a breeding pen for purebred something or other that we determine we like. But we are not there yet.

When you settle is the time to make a decision.


6. Spouse wants a more visually colorful rooster. Our BJG is handsome, but all black (except red comb/wattles of course).

Then get rid of the ones your spouse doesn't like to start with. That's the way I start the decision-making process of which to keep. Eliminate the ones that obviously don't meet the criteria to remove the clutter.


his moderate aggression concerns me, and I am hoping it is a teenage, hormonal thing. My tween wants to keep him too, another reason to try to keep him, if possible.

This is interesting, he goes after certain people but not others. It could have something to do with clothing or colors, some seem to not like certain shoes for example. It could easily be the attitude of the person. I had one that would go after my chicken sitter but not me. She was afraid of him and he could tell. It could be a hormonal teenage thing, but I'd not risk a young child being in his area when your back is turned. They often go for the heads and eyes. They can peck hard enough to rip a mouse apart into bite-sized pieces.

 

[Sadness Child]

I've had 2 Ameraucanas and they where nice looking but very aggressive, we had to give on to a friend who said that the other roo wasn't any better. Although his roo saved all but 2 of his chickens during a dog attack.
I would take out the ameraucana because of your tween

 

[Folly's place]

No bird who attacks me, or anyone, gets a free ride here. He's more likely to get worse, not better, and can do real harm.
He's not giving a good example to the cockerels, if it matters.
What happens when he injures one of your child's friends? Think about liability, if nothing else.
Mary

 

[Acre4Me]

No bird who attacks me, or anyone, gets a free ride here. He's more likely to get worse, not better, and can do real harm.
He's not giving a good example to the cockerels, if it matters.
What happens when he injures one of your child's friends? Think about liability, if nothing else.
Mary

Definitely understand. The current rooster (BJG) took quite awhile to warm up to his role as treat giver to the girls. It was a few months after we sold the other male (same age, but clearly the flock leader) before this one started to tidbit for the girls. He does alarm calls too. But, I'm not keen on his behavior. Wonder if the older girls will train up a young rooster right? If we got rid of the BJG, then there would not be an older male, just older females. Currently the older females are 16 months and 9 months old. The chicks are 7 weeks old (straight run).

 

[Mrs. K]

The others have mentioned egg color and disposition. I will mention examining the birds up close, feathers hide a lot of sins. Check the feet - you want straight toes, well formed feet and legs, and the bird need to walk well, watch them coming and going.

Pick the bird up, feel the breast and back, check the SOP, then look at your bird, check the beak, how it aligns, how it closes. The wattles, head shape and comb should meet the SOP as closely as possible.

When you approach the pen, the rooster should be the first one to see you. He should be very aware of you approaching and the girls around him, although if he is young, he may not be very good at these two traits, however, take a good look at the birds that do. He should be aware of you, but not glaring at you. He should naturally keep about 5 feet away from you, giving you respect.

If you do breed them, faults tend to get magnified, and the good traits tend to diminish over time, but we are talking multiple generations. But no use using birds with weak genetic traits.

I agree with the others, cull a few, and then look again. However, I think I would like that redcap.... course they have been kind of on my wish list.

Mrs K

 

[Acre4Me]

I think I would like that redcap.... course they have been kind of on my wish list.

It looks like the one Redcap we have is likely a female. She is super friendly. The friendliest chick we have ever seen. This has become apparent only in the last 1.5 weeks. She comes up to us and will talk (low chirping) to us. She will stand there, in the open run, and allow us to approach and pick her up! Never experienced this before with any chick we've had yet! We aren't going to win any awards for creative naming, but she is either going to be "Ruby" or "Rose". We got her from Sandhill Preservation, and they are sold out of Redcaps for 2019.


Good advice for what to look for with a male chick for choosing which to keep.

 

[aart]

She will stand there, in the open run, and allow us to approach and pick her up! Never experienced this before with any chick we've had yet!

Had a couple of birds do that...and they were the ones who never settled while being handled as chicks. One in particular would walk up to me and want to be picked up. Crazy. She stopped doing it as she got older, tho was always easy to handle.