Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Solanacae]

I wish I was allowed a rooster, but where I live (and the place I am moving to at the end of the month) roosters are banned.

Like @Perris, my first experience with a young cockerel resulted in eventually culling him. I think that, had circumstances been different, he would have become a nice leader for my flock. I’ve certainly learned a lot about rooster behavior between then and now and would certainly go about things differently.

 

[no fly zone]

I wish I was allowed a rooster, but where I live (and the place I am moving to at the end of the month) roosters are banned.

Like @Perris, my first experience with a young cockerel resulted in eventually culling him. I think that, had circumstances been different, he would have become a nice leader for my flock. I’ve certainly learned a lot about rooster behavior between then and now and would certainly go about things differently.

Don't understand how roosters are banned, but annoying yappy dogs aren't. I'd much rather hear crowing than barking.

 

[Solanacae]

Don't understand how roosters are banned, but annoying yappy dogs aren't. I'd much rather hear crowing than barking.

Same here, but such is life in suburbia. My husband didn’t love the crowing either and was very happy when I ‘finally’ decided it was time to cull the cockerel. To his credit, he wasn’t pushy about it. He was mostly just concerned about bothering the neighbors but he also sleeps very lightly/poorly. Once Mister started crowing, that was the end of sleeping for the night, so that was also a frustration of his. I sleep like the dead and have far less sensitive hearing, so it didn’t bother me.

The yard at our new place is almost double the size of our current yard, so I’m happy that there will be more room for the ladies to roam around. I’ve been trying to decide the best location for the coop (by the garden or the mini orchard?) and having altogether too much fun deciding how to landscape in a chicken/bee-friendly way.

 

[RoyalChick]

Don't understand how roosters are banned, but annoying yappy dogs aren't. I'd much rather hear crowing than barking.

 

[ManueB]

(I have to rise and fall with the sun or I'm no good to anyone)

So do we. And since our coop is right under our bedroom as it's a basement, we can hear the rooster very well, and he also can hear us. We've noticed the earliest he crowes, is actually the earliest time we get up, when my partner goes to work Friday and Saturday at 5. We guessed he heard us and definitely set his interior alarm clock on 5 ! On other days we get up a bit later but not that much, so he really doesn't bother us at all.

but he also sleeps very lightly/poorly. Once Mister started crowing, that was the end of sleeping for the night, so that was also a frustration of his

I completely understand your husband because if I have no problem with my rooster, I do have a problem with my partner's princess Hibou, who meows loudly for a whole minute every night she comes in after hunting, between midnight and two. And then proceeds to sleep on MY chair on throughout the whole day. Her brother is silent but he's not a princess.

t also makes sense from a biosecurity perspective, especially with confined animals.

Indeed, I didn't think of it. In this case the ewes and lambs will be going up the mountain when lambing is over, so they are not confined. However I threw my clothes in the washing machine as soon as I got home because the flea situation we had a few weeks ago did happen after racking manure from that place ...I guess that is also a kind of biosecurity !

Off topic and evil creature tax : flower ex-batt and olive tree bantam.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I have a peep in the banty coop .. Have not seen it.
I gave a white Silkie 2 eggs .. So may have 2 now.
Wind is blowing like the devil is causing it 40 to 50 MPH
just now.

 

[Sortacountrychicken]

Jackdaw picked a fight with Magpie today. Magpie has been his superior since day one. After ten minutes, Magpie retreated to the coop. He's a bloody mess and is missing half his comb.

Jackdaw went on to challenge his dad and was promptly put in his place.

 

[Shadrach]

After reading others' overnight answers (I have to rise and fall with the sun or I'm no good to anyone), I think genetics has to be part of the answer, because I've never been attacked by any of my current roos. It doesn't enter my head that one will go for me. There were two who were raised by my first and now most senior broody, who were purchased as hatching eggs (so different genetics), and both caused a lot of tension in the flock. They threatened me, and when they each in turn didn't respond to my efforts to tame them, I culled them, and the stress in the flock lifted immediately each time. I might try harder with them had I known then what I know now, but we learn a lot about chicken-keeping by doing, and those were early days. And I still think the advice I was following then - if there are problems, solve for the flock not the problematic individual - is good, and I still follow that principle.

It may be epigenetics too, because only one (Sven) was not hatched and raised here, so the rest had calm examples to follow; that includes the two that I culled, but none since have had issues, including the most recent clutch, which are also new genetics and a 'flighty' breed. The two jerk-age cocks among them are currently being trained by the senior hens

It may be environment too, because no-one is confined here so no-one is liable to feel trapped.

I do wear jeans and shoes all the time, so it's nice to know that helps I have occasionally been pecked on the leg or foot by a cockerel (more often by a pullet), and I have always assumed that's because they thought they saw something tasty sitting there. I say 'oy! that's me!', they stop, and no more is said or thought about it

I am sometimes shadowed by one of them when poop picking the coops in the morning (especially Sven, but I think he just wants company). I do check first that no-one is laying before I take the back off to get to the poop boards, so I'm not disturbing a laying hen or causing a potential dad to feel defensive. The roo will just watch me from nearby, or (in Chirk's case) at about 2 o'clock as fighter pilots used to say in the movies (when the coops are near a wall which offers that perching place, as currently), or indeed right in front of me and inspecting my work closely as I do it (Sven, Phoenix), but I have never felt threatened by any of them.

I don't make a point of walking through the roos, to make them make way for me (as some roo keepers advise), but I don't go round them either. I just swing my leg round to step over them, or say 'excuse me' and wait for them to move aside. So we all keep calm and carry on - we Welsh are also British, after all

Carry on regardless. Always makes me grin.

 

[pennyJo1960]

So this is my tax my silkie girls co brooding the hatch of two. I just had two eggs under them both blue.

 

[Shadrach]

I wish I was allowed a rooster, but where I live (and the place I am moving to at the end of the month) roosters are banned.

Like @Perris, my first experience with a young cockerel resulted in eventually culling him. I think that, had circumstances been different, he would have become a nice leader for my flock. I’ve certainly learned a lot about rooster behavior between then and now and would certainly go about things differently.

One would think that there are laws in place concerning public annoyance and antisocial behaviour, to deal with excesively noisy roosters.
Most of the people who have houses with back gardens facing onto the allotment say they like hearing Henry crow in the morning.
Fortunately Henry is a very quiet rooster as roosters go.