Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalChickies]

Before I knew better, I just stuck my foot up (I always wear my wellies when I am out there.) and let him attack it while telling him no and he would give up pretty fast, but I learned that that was just making a show of aggression back reaffirming his feeling that I was a threat to him. There is so much bad advice when it come to cockerels.. Now I can tell just by his body language and that look in his eyes, and as soon as he starts for me I say his name firmly and step towards him and then talk to him and then he starts tidbitting. He really has gotten better with the preening and the treat/food distribution changes, he will even take food and treats from my hand again.

Hm. Sounds like you are getting somewhere. I'm thinking there's some stress in the group -- especially for Lucio. After all there's been big shifts recently: two broodies have chicks (his first offspring), a hen (Butchie) has "disappeared", and the 3.5 mo cockerels are looking more and more like roosters (potential competition, maybe?)

Anyway, he came for me today just as I finished dishing out their dinner. I always give him first dibs on the food. Then I dish out the rest in small piles. My birds don't like plates or bowls. Two of the hens just flip them over in disgust to get the food on the ground. So I just put food on the ground. Less to wash. Fine with me!

Everything had been fine. Really mellow at breakfast. It was a beautiful day, so everyone sunbathed and foraged. All the laying hens laid eggs. No problemo. I called them to dinner and gave Lucio first dibs as usual, dished out the rest of the food in several piles like always, watched for awhile to make sure everyone was getting some food, and started to walk away. Lucio puts his head down and comes after me. No wings outstretched, hackles not raised, just doggedly coming after me like an old bull. He looked really pissed off. And I'm like, ok, what now? Why are you fixating on me when your hens are eating and there's fierce toucans around, huh? Not that the toucans are fierce, but they don't know that.

So although I just stood there, quite calmly actually, he didn't pull up. I wasn't reacting in anger or in any way being inconsistent or erratic. But I was far from charmed at this point, I'll be honest. He jumped. I caught his underside with my palm and tossed him away (an underhand lob, like you'd pitch a softball to a little kid). He flapped his wings to land, completely unhurt, about ten feet away. He looked a little embarrassed. Then he crowed four or five times, but wouldn't look at me. I very slowly walked away.

So maybe the loss of a hen, combined with new chicks, is stressing him out. Maybe he thinks I should be Butchie's "replacement" since I lived in the same "coop" with her. Maybe he's just being a ten month old wannabe rudeboy gangsta. IDFK.

I really didn't want to have to resort to an emergency measure. I certainly hope he doesn't take it as "mistreatment" -- I swept him as gently as I could while putting distance between us. I didn't hurt him physically at all. And I'm not out to wound his pride or make him "submit" or any of that nonsense. I'm not out to be "the alpha" or whatever. But I'm not a hen, or a spurring bag.

So I thought it over after they went to the coop and thought, well, I haven't preened him in a few weeks (the sticktights are gone until spring), so I'll go try a little honey after the vinegar. Surprisingly, he let me approach his roost and tuck him under my arm. I stroked his cheeks and started to tug at his neck feathers. Lice. Not a ton, but more than a few. And his skin was red and chafed looking. Some big feathers coming in too. That can't be helping his mood. I took him for permethrin application right away. Spent a good 20 minutes or so killing lice and sweet talking him. He was totally cooperative and seemed to feel relieved even as I treated him.

I hope he feels better. Tomorrow is another day.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Hm. Sounds like you are getting somewhere. I'm thinking there's some stress in the group -- especially for Lucio. After all there's been big shifts recently: two broodies have chicks (his first offspring), a hen (Butchie) has "disappeared", and the 3.5 mo cockerels are looking more and more like roosters (potential competition, maybe?)

Anyway, he came for me today just as I finished dishing out their dinner. I always give him first dibs on the food. Then I dish out the rest in small piles. My birds don't like plates or bowls. Two of the hens just flip them over in disgust to get the food on the ground. So I just put food on the ground. Less to wash. Fine with me!

Everything had been fine. Really mellow at breakfast. It was a beautiful day, so everyone sunbathed and foraged. All the laying hens laid eggs. No problemo. I called them to dinner and gave Lucio first dibs as usual, dished out the rest of the food in several piles like always, watched for awhile to make sure everyone was getting some food, and started to walk away. Lucio puts his head down and comes after me. No wings outstretched, hackles not raised, just doggedly coming after me like an old bull. He looked really pissed off. And I'm like, ok, what now? Why are you fixating on me when your hens are eating and there's fierce toucans around, huh? Not that the toucans are fierce, but they don't know that.

So I'm sorry to say, that although I just stood there, quite calmly actually but dismayed at this behavior, he didn't pull up. I wasn't reacting in anger or in any way being inconsistent or erratic. But I was far from charmed at this point, I'll be honest. He jumped. I caught his underside with my palm and tossed him away (an underhand lob, like you'd pitch a softball to a little kid). He flapped his wings to land, completely unhurt, about ten feet away. He looked a little embarrassed. Then he crowed four or five times, but wouldn't look at me. I very slowly walked away.

So maybe the loss of a hen, combined with new chicks, is stressing him out. Maybe he thinks I should be Butchie's "replacement" since I lived in the same "coop" with her. Maybe he's just being a ten month old wannabe rudeboy gangsta. IDFK.

I really didn't want to have to resort to an emergency measure. I certainly hope he doesn't take it as "mistreatment" -- I swept him as gently as I could while putting distance between us. I didn't hurt him physically at all. And I'm not out to wound his pride or make him "submit" or any of that nonsense. I'm not out to be "the alpha" or whatever. But I'm not a hen, or a spurring bag, and who was guarding the hens while he was busy running me down?

So I thought it over after they went to the coop and thought, well, I haven't preened him in a few weeks (the sticktights are gone until spring), so I'll go try a little honey after the vinegar. Surprisingly, he let me approach his roost and tuck him under my arm. I stroked his cheeks and started to tug at his neck feathers. Lice. Not a ton, but more than a few. And his skin was red and chafed looking. Some big feathers coming in too. That can't be helping his mood. I took him for permethrin application (cotton ball dipped in solution to the skin) right away. Spent a good 20 minutes or so killing lice and sweet talking him. He was totally cooperative and seemed to feel relieved even as I treated him.

I hope he feels better. Tomorrow is another day.

Losing tribe members, new boys, and lice probably had him feeling grumpy. I know you love them and his petulance hurts your heart. He is still a younger boy right? (Still under a year?) He may still be quite hormonal too and hopefully this was just a cry for attention and he will settle back down.

You had to protect yourself and you weren't violent and it is not like you are big.. I am 5'8", mine would have to really launch at me to get to a height where they could really hurt me. My height makes me pretty brave..lol

The other 2 are the same age and close to the same size but Spud has always been super friendly, we used to call him my pocket roo because he was always in my lap and follows me everywhere. Goldie has always been stand-offish but not above eating out of my hand. Blue used to be the solitary one, friendly enough, but always focused on the girls. (thus why he became the dominant.) Right now, Spud and Goldie are starting to charm some of the ladies away from him. I really need these other 26 pullets to grow faster.. because 9 pullets between 3 boys is just not a good mix and I think that is causing some additional stress for him, but I am just reinforcing my trust in him as the dominant. He just has to hang on, 5 more weeks.

I made the rookie mistake of believing, "They are Buff Orpingtons, docile and friendly" I have made friends with bulls, wild horses, deer, elk, how hard can it be to win over a rooster with food and cuddles??" I have learned a lot in our first 8 months!

Tomorrow is a new day, be forgiving and patient, but also aware and hopefully your sweet boy is feeling better, calmer since you cuddled him and treated his itchy lice.

 

[BDutch]

There are so very many people that their go to response is to cull the males and that is sad. I love my boys, they are so good with the girls, and now that my understanding of their role and needs is growing I am really enjoying watching them grow and develop. They are such noble, proud creatures.

How do you manage this?
Buying girls or do you hatch and
keep the ratio 1:1? I never heard a 1:1 ratio with a group of hens and roosters is fine. Not even with a tolerant breed like silkies. So I’m really curious.

 

[Shadrach]

Life suddenly got very busy. I'm not home much so won't be posting much.
I read the thread on my dumb phone but posting pictures and anything more than pressing like gives me rage fits, so obviously I try and avoid the phone as much as possible.
All the chicksn are fine. Chicks have burst into feathering and one of them has feathered legs.
Hopefully life will quieten down on Monday and I'll get some pictures up.

 

[Perris]

thanks for the news; I was starting to worry...

 

[TropicalChickies]

Losing tribe members, new boys, and lice probably had him feeling grumpy. I know you love them and his petulance hurts your heart. He is still a younger boy right? (Still under a year?) He may still be quite hormonal too and hopefully this was just a cry for attention and he will settle back down.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. He sure is grumpy. I'm trying not to take it too personally. This morning as I was mixing up their breakfast, he was chasing Patucha around everywhere. She usually crouches for him, but she was on the run, so I think we're all feeling his angst right now.

He's ten months old.

Sadly, he was no better this morning. He wanted to have a standoff on the way out to the feeding area. I just kept walking past him in that direction. He jumped at me, not very high and pretty half-heartedly I must say. I gave him a firm but gentle push away with my hand. He came back for me. Repeat. Finally he took a peck of food and let me feed him and the others.

I don't like all this contact. The last thing I want is for him to perceive me as a threat. But standing there and letting him flog me while I'm holding the food bucket isn't exactly my cup of tea -- and he's holding up breakfast for everyone. Making sure everyone gets fed should really be his priority I think, not dueling with the Food Lady before she's had her coffee.

Maybe it's all just hormones and insecurity, but I think it could also be about Butchie's death. Lucio comes to the door of the kitchen looking for her several times a day, tidbiting outside the door (which is more like a gate, all of our buildings are ground level and built more like gazebos with low walls and wide entrances). On days when she was feeling good, I would let her out to mix with the others and kick some juvenile butt to give her day more oomph. Sometimes she would even crouch for him. So even though she wasn't with his other wives all the time, he still felt like she was his hen.

Now I'm the only one coming out of that gate. Maybe he thinks I'm keeping her for myself or took her away (which I did, because she was dying) and that has something to do with his aggression. Because the change in his attitude towards me over the past week is pretty stark.

Thanks again for the response. I'm being as patient as I can without letting him hurt me physically. My partner -- who is a very steady, resolute person-- has been attacked more often than me just going about his business and is basically like, time for sopita. I just keep saying, he'll grow out of it. I'm willing to give him time to settle down because if I don't make an effort to resolve the problem with this hormonal cockerel, it's certainly no guarantee that the next one will be any different. As Shadrach says, getting rid of the rooster doesn't solve the problem, it just removes the rooster.

If he gets nasty with the hens, that will be another story.

Tax for cockerel dismay

Dusty in the bath wondering where the heck her kids are

Oh, hey mom!

 

[ManueB]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. He sure is grumpy. I'm trying not to take it too personally. This morning as I was mixing up their breakfast, he was chasing Patucha around everywhere. She usually crouches for him, but she was on the run, so I think we're all feeling his angst right now.

He's ten months old.

Sadly, he was no better this morning. He wanted to have a standoff on the way out to the feeding area. I just kept walking past him in that direction. He jumped at me, not very high and pretty half-heartedly I must say. I gave him a firm but gentle push away with my hand. He came back for me. Repeat. Finally he took a peck of food and let me feed him and the others.

I don't like all this contact. The last thing I want is for him to perceive me as a threat. But standing there and letting him flog me while I'm holding the food bucket isn't exactly my cup of tea -- and he's holding up breakfast for everyone. Making sure everyone gets fed should really be his priority I think, not dueling with the Food Lady before she's had her coffee.

Maybe it's all just hormones and insecurity, but I think it could also be about Butchie's death. Lucio comes to the door of the kitchen looking for her several times a day, tidbiting outside the door (which is more like a gate, all of our buildings are ground level and built more like gazebos with low walls and wide entrances). On days when she was feeling good, I would let her out to mix with the others and kick some juvenile butt to give her day more oomph. Sometimes she would even crouch for him. So even though she wasn't with his other wives all the time, he still felt like she was his hen.

Now I'm the only one coming out of that gate. Maybe he thinks I'm keeping her for myself or took her away (which I did, because she was dying) and that has something to do with his aggression. Because the change in his attitude towards me over the past week is pretty stark.

Thanks again for the response. I'm being as patient as I can without letting him hurt me physically. My partner -- who is a very steady, resolute person-- has been attacked more often than me just going about his business and is basically like, time for sopita. I just keep saying, he'll grow out of it. I'm willing to give him time to settle down because if I don't make an effort to resolve the problem with this hormonal cockerel, it's certainly no guarantee that the next one will be any different. As Shadrach says, getting rid of the rooster doesn't solve the problem, it just removes the rooster.

If he gets nasty with the hens, that will be another story.

Tax for cockerel dismay

Dusty in the bath wondering where the heck her kids are
View attachment 3619020

Oh, hey mom!
View attachment 3619021

I can't give advice since I didn't do very well with Théo, and as Shadrach often says, you should listen to those who succeed, not those who fail . I will tell you how things went for us. I certainly sympathise for what you're going through with Lucio. Especially just after Butchie passed, I hope you are not finding it too upsetting.
I was in your very situation of trying to keep my young rooster while my partner kept saying "coq au vin" . And I really wanted to try to wait it out in case it was just a phase or it had to do with our behaviour.

First I need to say Théo is a tiny cross bantam and he was more putting off a show than really trying to hurt. The only time I got hurt was very much my fault, when I threw a water bucket at him and strained my finger . Served me right.

Anyway what helped me through that "phase" that turned out to be so long lasting I don't think calling it a phase accurate, was identifying the situations in which he systematically flew at us, and making adjustments so that they would happen as rarely as possible. For him, it was us bringing food holding buckets, passing him too close by especially in a space where he couldn't put some distance (in the run or in the co-op's entrance) and talking to or feeding the hens. So for example I changed my way of feeding and filled feeders before opening the coop, and if I needed to come in with a bucket of water or food I either tried to wait until he was busy elsewhere or was careful not to show him what I was holding.
The last thing that really triggered him was hand feeding him. Unfortunately I had to stop trying, because I had to acknowledge just seeing my hand got him upset. Maybe he associated it with being caught.
Making those changes wasn't magic but it helped a bit, and it didn't cost us much.

In the long run, it didn't solve things. He didn't grow up to suddenly become our friend. We progressively understood that he was aggressive mostly because he was afraid and stressed out, which doesn't seem to be the case for Lucio. We sort of respected his distance, and he gradually did the same, after having got sent flying several times a few meters when my partner blocked him off.
What really made things better, however, was when he strained his leg, and had to be kept in a crate. Then he had no choice but to see that our hands were bringing him food, and cleaning things up for him twenty times a day. After that he was very trusting for a while, but that did not last. Now he is still very weary of us, but he never attacks us and he will eat from our hand if we are patient, and come when we call him. We can sometimes handle him, sometimes he doesn't let himself be caught. My partner's relation with him has improved a lot and he’s convinced it's because he calls him "Théo mon copain" , "my pal Théo". Magical thinking ?

He is now around two years old.

Before that it was a lot of drama, and we kept arguing badly with my partner, especially when on top of that the two roosters started fighting. I felt responsible for the situation they were in. I wasn't ready to try to re-home before being sure that things wouldn't get better and in the end they did, but it took almost a year. Maybe I didn't do things right, but apart from sometimes loosing my temper, i’m not sure what. I’m pretty sure that growing up along six ex-batts who had never seen a rooster and kept bullying him stressed him out, and that was part of why I felt responsible. My second rooster Gaston is very different, and a lot more trusting.

I hope it goes smoother for you and Lucio so he doesn't end in your plate.

 

[no fly zone]

Two months without Skeksis

 

[Molpet]

Two months without Skeksis

 

[bruceha2000]

I’m pretty sure that growing up along six ex-batts who had never seen a rooster and kept bullying him stressed him out

I am worried about that with Zeus. Got him as an "oops" EE cockerel from the guy who watched our animals while we went to my daughter's wedding. He said "young" but when I picked him up it was obvious his definition of young and mine are not the same. I'm guessing about 4 months old, about as big as the adult girls. He had just integrated the six he got from the farm and yard store this spring with his existing hens the week before. I would have done it at 4 weeks if not earlier.

Saddle feathers coming in and he crows well. The girls are giving him some grief for existing but he is young enough that he runs and hides, doesn't attack.