Rooster Issue

[chickenmeadow]

Chicken aprons work great, take them off of the bare backed hens when their feathers grow back fully. It gives them a chance to let the skin heal from irritation & let the feathers grow back.

My rooster has a flock of 14 hens that adore him & he could easily cover a few more, but he still has those few favorite hens that get their back feathers roughed up more often, so the aprons help the feathers grow back without getting picked at by other hens or get their skin picked on. Best wishes!

 

[Peppercorngal]

He is a beautiful rooster and you may not let him go! I have spoken! I have a big rooster (Harvey) and some of my hens have bare backs as well. The girls LOVE Harvey! They gather around him and fight for the right to sleep next to him. Sometimes to the point of being forced off the roost! If your rooster is a good one, calls the girls to the food (like Harvey), gives alerts for danger (Like Harvey) and gives you chicks I see no reason to get rid of him or subject him to a crockpot just for being who he is! File down the nails, get the girls sweaters, but keep him! A good rooster (especially with humans) is a rare and special thing, if you ignore that you will be sorry! This is my Harvey.

 

[Peppercorngal]

So he is a good rooster and safe with people and the hens.
I have never used pinless peepers on a rooster but see no reason it wont work.
They work like goggles in that the chicken must use periferal vision instead of straight ahead vision.
It takes them a few days to figure it out but do well after some time of adjustment. If you put a pair of these on your rooster it would immediatly curb the aggresive chase down and rape method he is displaying now. He would be more concerned with navagation to overbreed giving your hens time to regrow those feathers.
It also on the other hand make him less of a good lookout and more prone to being picked off to a preditor during the day.
I think it would be a good humbling experience for him.
I purchased 24 goggles along with the tool to put them on from Amazon last fall when i adopted 6 production hens and got a feather picker in the bargain. My Bad girl wore the goggles for 6 weeks. Enough time for the others to grow new feathers past the pin feather stage. Took the goggles off and no more frather picking. I did have to pick her up and put her on the roosts each night for the first couple weeks.
Good luck with your big rooster!
View attachment 1784479

Chickens don't get raped. Rape is a human action. Chickens comply or run off and hide. There is no chicken rape.

 

[Santa Claus]

Well you should have given it to him for Christmas last year!

He is on the naughty list...

 

[Peppercorngal]

He is on the naughty list...

I guess you would know that. . . .

 

[Fluffnut]

I have all different breeds. 2 of the hens are also Brahmas (like him). He usually is very polite. He generally does his mating dance and waits for the girls to submit but recently he’s been chasing them like a mad man to mount them aggressively lol. He’s about a year old now.

The girls don’t have open wounds, but it is unsightly to look at their bare backs. I think I feel worse than they feel.

I will try trimming his nails and see how that goes.

I have technically only seen him mount the bantams twice, generally they do their own thing away from the rest of the flock so I’m not overly concerned about them.

I may be overreacting, I just feel bad. The feather loss got really bad over the winter, when they were confined to their coop / run. Now that they are free ranging I think it’s gotten better?

Exactly my problem! I'll try filing too- how did it go for you? I'm also going to try saddles, but how do I stop the back-of-the-head plucking (from when he grabs hold to mount)?

 

[Fluffnut]

He is a beautiful rooster and you may not let him go! I have spoken! I have a big rooster (Harvey) and some of my hens have bare backs as well. The girls LOVE Harvey! They gather around him and fight for the right to sleep next to him. Sometimes to the point of being forced off the roost! If your rooster is a good one, calls the girls to the food (like Harvey), gives alerts for danger (Like Harvey) and gives you chicks I see no reason to get rid of him or subject him to a crockpot just for being who he is! File down the nails, get the girls sweaters, but keep him! A good rooster (especially with humans) is a rare and special thing, if you ignore that you will be sorry! This is my Harvey.

View attachment 1789117

Glad to see Harvey is feeling better- handsome as ever. I was following your thread when he was ill, he looks great now!

 

[Peppercorngal]

Glad to see Harvey is feeling better- handsome as ever. I was following your thread when he was ill, he looks great now!

Thanks, he is back to being himself again. He even crowed today!

 

[Audrey Watson]

View attachment 1784360 If adding more pullets doesn’t work, here is your sulution

Awwww come on now.

 

[Willowspirit]

You have to get stick on eyes for these when you use them, it makes all the difference in the world for their attitude

do you mean googly eyes?