Rooster mating ritual?

[Mrs. K]

I would like to apologize for my earlier reply. With the written text, it is easy to be too aggressive and rude, when one is trying to be emphatic at what one believes is or could be a dangerous situation.

Many people new to chickens can get into a dangerous mess with rooster, and wind up being flogged and attacked, all the while just wishing all the chickens would get along.

Please accept my apologies,

Mrs K

 

[MerkySky]

Thank you.
I also should not have taken it so personally. I have so much to learn and realize having chickens is more then just thinking they are cute. I just got a book on what they can eat and what plants they can not. As I own a landscape business and have lots of varieties of plants.
Also the health issues. I want very much for my hens to not only produce eggs for us but to be happy and healthy. I am not interested in keeping them caged for pure egg production.
Reading your 2 post I can certainly see how it could be dangerous with roosters. I was able to place my rooster today with someone who wanted one. He now has a nice big place to roam with plenty of hens and an experienced owner who was thrilled to get him. Watching my flock closely the last few days the Bantam rooster and the second calmer Jersey Giant rooster are doing very well. The Bantam has taken guard over 4 of my other hens while the Jersey is sticking to his hens that he has a coop with . Both roosters seem to be more in a " stand guard mode" over their flock. When I approach to feed or just check up on them while my one set of hens is very friendly and comes right over to me the Bantam will follow close behind and watch me closely. I see no aggression with these two roosters. I do have a home ready for the other Jersey if he should get aggressive.
Again thank you for your apology.

 

[MerkySky]

This is my Jersey Black Roosters new home. There are many more hens they just all took off once he was introduced to them..This one hen stuck around to check him out.

This is Zoe my most friendly hen. I had just read this morning some treat ideas so I tried it. Took all of them awhile to take a peck at the treats. Zoe is going for the peanut butter inside a cored apple with no seeds. And there are blueberries. my other tray of blueberries I left out for the other flock was gone. So my treat was a hit.

 

[Smithschicks]

We are fairly new to raising chickens, we have 3 hens from our first flock (1 Rhode Island Red & 2 Barrodrocks) all 3 of these are about 3 yrs old and still laying. We also have 3 other hens that are 17 months old (1 EE, 1 Silver Wyndotte, 1 one I believe they said Lowman). Last weekend we took in a 16 week old EE Roo, he's a very sweet boy and loves to be held. My concern is he is letting our hens pick on him & not hangout with them. When will he start "taking charge" of the flock, or is that not how it works? He sleeps in the coop with them at night so at least he isn't being pushed out of the coop. Would appreciate any help you can give me.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When will he take charge? When he matures enough. I’ve had one at 4 months that could do that with older mature hens. My current flock master couldn’t dominate one certain hen until he was 11 months old though the others accepted him at a much younger age. There is no set age when it will happen. Each chicken has its own personality.