I wondered about this too. It would be a great question (poll) for a new thread.
Not sure if you get answers. Unfortunately not much BYC keepers have experiences with both natural and unnatural keeping conditions and roos. But tagging the ones who have truly free ranging chickens might give at least an idea. If people chime in with roos in confinement, you can compare the two.
+ Im afraid the people who live in a climate with cold winters can’t truly free range whole year.
In fact you need answers to several questions. Like:
- do you free range the whole day or 24/7?
- do you cull all surplus cockerels?
- do you ever need to kill a cockerel because his behaviour is intolerable?
- can your chickens choose where to sleep ?
- is there enough food the whole day or 24/7?
I have been keeping the bantam flock cooped up for about three years, with the exception of a few weeks last year.
The Tsouloufati group has been a work in progress, and a ranging group for over a decade.
Until relatively recently, I did now hatch any chicks here, nor were there any broodies to do it naturally.
In that time, across all pens, I have been attacked by two males, as have the hens (though different ones).
The bantam pen is currently hen-only, all of which have gone broody at some point, and most of which have raised at least one chick.
Feed is available 24/7. All three mature cockerels and roosters that had at some point led the group were not human aggressive. Same goes for the immature cockerels that were given and/or eaten before they turned 6 months old.
No female aggression either.
The Tsouloufati group ranges (or rather, did). Summertime ranging is usually from 7-9 am to 8:30-9:30pm. Wintertime ranging is from 7 am to 6:30pm.
Feed is available 24/7, and they get given scraps once or twice daily, as well as what they can find while foraging.
Up until this year, there have been no broodies in the group. There is one broody-raised two year old, Lucia. She was raised by Cruella in a coop situation.
She’s hands down the best forager on the property, a frequent tree hugger (something she no doubt picked up from her adoptive mother), and the only bird so far to fly beyond the property, to the forest below, and find a way to come back safely. From what I’ve gathered, her laying cycles are very balanced as well.
She had a brother, who I have mentioned before. Gorgeous male, but he terrorised the hens a lot. Dragging them off the roosts to mate was a daily activity for him.
He was culled a few weeks before his first birthday, and to this day he is the only sexually mature LF male that’s been raised by a broody (though there is a possibility Big Red was partly broody raised as well, but I don’t know that, as the information I was given about his past was limited).
Speaking of Big Red in his brother, that’s been one of my biggest mistakes. I decided once they hit the 6 month mark to raise them completely cut off from chicken society (and nature)
At around 9months, Big Red was introduced to the biggest Tsouloufati hen on the property (a now senior that’s still with us); that didn’t end well. Big Red was ok with the two Brahmas that I got for him one year later (one of which was Galadriel’s mother), but he never bonded to the hens, nor did he treat them the same way Kolovos or Lady Gaga did with theirs.
All other LF males that once called the property home, were brooded up in the house and were with the main group around the 8 week mark. After that, they lived just like the adults. Every male after Kolovos that came into the group had at least one adult male role model, and many female.
Lady Gaga was put in with Cruella and Ursula when he was 4 months old, and in his tragically short life, he never got to share his tribe with another adult rooster.
TLDR(isn’t that how it’s written
?): Two serious hen “rapists” here (excluding the few adolescent males that were rather aggressive with their early mating attempts, since they were culled at 4 months old). One, a broody-raised male, very in-tune with chicken society, and got to range from 7 weeks onward.
The other, not familiar with chicken society at all.
Both were (eventually) culled for it.
All the chickens, no matter the age and upbringing, have a wide variety of perches, roosting options, and the ability to pick where they want to roost. The seniors prefer the top nests, the adult hens prefer the top of Big Red’s old coop, and the adolescents not belonging to any mother choose the bamboo roosts at the back end of the coop
What's more, he chest bumped Mow a bit later and Mow didn't crouch and Glais moved away.
