Okay, I admit it, I like the boys best.
I mean, look at your average hen, she looks like the back of a bus compared to a rooster. She waddles about her fat bum swaying, stuffing her face all day. I was having a conversation about the meaning of life with a hen the other day and I’m halfway through a complicated theory and she suddenly darts off to catch this bug she’s seen out of the corner of her eye.
How rude is that?
Hen meetings, I’ve sat in on a few. I’ve fallen asleep in some. You can only listen to so much ‘I laid this lovely egg today’ and ‘do you think my egg is allright, it’s got spots on,’ before boredom sets in and the next thing you know your getting pecked for dozing off!
Bossy! I’m more senior to you (peck) .
Bitchy, I’m not talking to you since you’ve become the roosters favourite (peck)
That’s my worm (peck),
and when they have kids…..all that nicey nicey stuff goes straight out the window and they’re rolling about in the mud trying to peck each others eyes out because one hens chick pecked one of the other hens chicks. It’s all just way too violent for me.
You don’t get that with a rooster. He’ll listen to you all day long; provided one of his hens doesn’t start shouting the house down wanting collecting from laying an egg.
I was talking to Cillin a while back, (he’s the main man of Tribe1) telling him about the stuff I read on Backyard Chickens and he thought, given I’m human, and can do words, that I should try and do something for all those roosters who get killed because they’ve been born male. As Cillin pointed out, given the millions of eggs hatched each year, the probability being half of which will be male, the situation needs addressing.
I wonder what the response would be if I posted this.
I’ve got this lovely hen that I raised from the egg. She used to be so sweet. I used to cuddle her and feed her pieces of my toast in the morning and the kids just adore her. I was so pleased when she decided to sit and my children were terribly excited at the prospect of having little chick friends to play with. We all waited for the big day when she would hatch her eggs. A couple of mornings ago I went with the kids to look at the new chicks and the hen flew at me like a she devil, I was lucky to escape with the few scratches I got. My smallest child who tried to touch one of the chicks had to go and see the doctor the scratches the hen gave him were so bad. What is wrong with my hen?
She wont let us anywhere near her now and screeches at us if we get close. I’m scared she’ll hurt one of the children. Any advice would be appreciated.
Do you think I would get posts saying I should never tolerate any aggressive behaviour from any animal?
Do you think I would get posts advising me to humanely dispose of the hen?
There are lots of posts where people are incubating eggs; probability has it that half of those chickens that hatch will be male. Only a very few of those males will be wanted, the rest will be killed.
It is true, there are unaccountably aggressive roosters, but a moments thought about the roosters role in protecting and providing for his hens might help explain some roosters aggressive behaviour.
Often, in a roosters eyes the position of the human is ambiguous. I believe they know you’re not a chicken, but if you’re feeding his hens then you are competition. Finding hens food is one of the ways roosters attract hens. If you’re feeding the hens better than he can, and you were a rooster, he may eventually lose his hens to you
It seems to me that double standards are being applied. Aggressive behaviour from the hen is acceptable because we understand the hens need to protect her chicks.
Aggressive behaviour from a rooster it seems isn’t acceptable. Maybe if we understood the reasons a rooster displays such behaviour, even if it were still deemed unacceptable an understanding could help us to reduce the occurrences of such behaviour and maybe more roosters would live.
Before people start throwing stones at me and demanding the post be removed I would like them to stop and think for a moment.
Do roosters make good pets?
If there is doubt about the above don’t think it might be better to try and persuade people not to try to keep roosters as pets?
I mean, look at your average hen, she looks like the back of a bus compared to a rooster. She waddles about her fat bum swaying, stuffing her face all day. I was having a conversation about the meaning of life with a hen the other day and I’m halfway through a complicated theory and she suddenly darts off to catch this bug she’s seen out of the corner of her eye.
How rude is that?
Hen meetings, I’ve sat in on a few. I’ve fallen asleep in some. You can only listen to so much ‘I laid this lovely egg today’ and ‘do you think my egg is allright, it’s got spots on,’ before boredom sets in and the next thing you know your getting pecked for dozing off!
Bossy! I’m more senior to you (peck) .
Bitchy, I’m not talking to you since you’ve become the roosters favourite (peck)
That’s my worm (peck),
and when they have kids…..all that nicey nicey stuff goes straight out the window and they’re rolling about in the mud trying to peck each others eyes out because one hens chick pecked one of the other hens chicks. It’s all just way too violent for me.
You don’t get that with a rooster. He’ll listen to you all day long; provided one of his hens doesn’t start shouting the house down wanting collecting from laying an egg.
I was talking to Cillin a while back, (he’s the main man of Tribe1) telling him about the stuff I read on Backyard Chickens and he thought, given I’m human, and can do words, that I should try and do something for all those roosters who get killed because they’ve been born male. As Cillin pointed out, given the millions of eggs hatched each year, the probability being half of which will be male, the situation needs addressing.
I wonder what the response would be if I posted this.
I’ve got this lovely hen that I raised from the egg. She used to be so sweet. I used to cuddle her and feed her pieces of my toast in the morning and the kids just adore her. I was so pleased when she decided to sit and my children were terribly excited at the prospect of having little chick friends to play with. We all waited for the big day when she would hatch her eggs. A couple of mornings ago I went with the kids to look at the new chicks and the hen flew at me like a she devil, I was lucky to escape with the few scratches I got. My smallest child who tried to touch one of the chicks had to go and see the doctor the scratches the hen gave him were so bad. What is wrong with my hen?
She wont let us anywhere near her now and screeches at us if we get close. I’m scared she’ll hurt one of the children. Any advice would be appreciated.
Do you think I would get posts saying I should never tolerate any aggressive behaviour from any animal?
Do you think I would get posts advising me to humanely dispose of the hen?
There are lots of posts where people are incubating eggs; probability has it that half of those chickens that hatch will be male. Only a very few of those males will be wanted, the rest will be killed.
It is true, there are unaccountably aggressive roosters, but a moments thought about the roosters role in protecting and providing for his hens might help explain some roosters aggressive behaviour.
Often, in a roosters eyes the position of the human is ambiguous. I believe they know you’re not a chicken, but if you’re feeding his hens then you are competition. Finding hens food is one of the ways roosters attract hens. If you’re feeding the hens better than he can, and you were a rooster, he may eventually lose his hens to you
It seems to me that double standards are being applied. Aggressive behaviour from the hen is acceptable because we understand the hens need to protect her chicks.
Aggressive behaviour from a rooster it seems isn’t acceptable. Maybe if we understood the reasons a rooster displays such behaviour, even if it were still deemed unacceptable an understanding could help us to reduce the occurrences of such behaviour and maybe more roosters would live.
Before people start throwing stones at me and demanding the post be removed I would like them to stop and think for a moment.
Do roosters make good pets?
If there is doubt about the above don’t think it might be better to try and persuade people not to try to keep roosters as pets?
