Silkie Roo

[BernieTheMighty]

My 7 chickens are all 4.5 months old, from research and lots of comparing to google images (lol) I have come to the conclusion that I have 4 barred rocks, 1 silkie, 1 old english bantam, and 1 golden laced sebright bantam. All gorgeous chickens and 4 ended up being roosters! 2 of the barred rocks, my silkie, and my old english.

My 2 barred roo's each picked a barred hen that they go off together with, my bantam roo hangs out with his bantam hen, and my silkie has sort of adopted the 2 bantams. I know silkie hens are motherly and kind of adopt anything near them but do silkie roosters do the same?

Those three are constantly together, once in awhile they two roo's get in a little kerfluffle but it lasts a few seconds and life goes on. However, I often times catch my silkie roo sitting on the roost with his wings slightly spread and under one wing is the bantam hen and under the other is the bantam roo.

Is this normal or just a funny little odd silkie thing? He's 100% a rooster as he has the trailing head feathers and he has crowing down to an art.

And just as an aside, though I am sure it should go in stories, my little roo likes to pick fights with the top barred rock rooster and the top barred rock ignores him, despite my bantam roo's best wing dances. So the big roo is all "please peepsqueak, what are you going to do to ME?" and my little roo will stop the wing dance and act like his ego isn't bruised, then he quick runs up and bites the roosters leg. The rooster finds him and doinks him on the head and it's all over.

And crowing bantams are hilarious, so squeaky.

*I know I need more hens because I have too many roosters. We are about to move and once we do so, I am going to get more hens.

 

[pdirt]

As for your silkie roo holding wings over those two chickens (one being another roo!) sounds adorable but I have no idea why he is doing it. We have a silkie roo, but have never seen him do something like that. Please post a photo if you can!

It sounds like all of your chickens are pretty young, including your roos. Do keep in mind that a 4.5 month old roo is not sexually mature yet. Some roos take up to 2 years to mature sexually. They are very kind and docile now, but the hormones are not in full force yet. They are all getting along now, but as they get older, they will get more aggressive with each other and the hens will get way over-sexed (looking beat up and losing lots of feathers). It can be quite dramatic..."whatever happened to my sweet little roo!?!", as he attacks you, your other roos or hens. I just read about someone who was severely attacked by her roo, spurs went to her shin bones and she went to the ER and couldn't walk for days. With your four roosters, if you follow the 10-to-1 rule, is you will need about 40 hens. This isn't always the case, some people do fine with less, but the 10:1 rule seems to be a safe bet, in most cases. At a minimum, I would suggest having 20-25 hens for your 4 roos and see how it goes. However, if you want to save yourself the headache of taking care of that many chickens, either cull or find homes for 3 of your roos. Do keep in mind that it is NOT easy to find someone who will take your extra roos and let them live out a happy life. There are a few folks and refuges out there like that, but they are few. Most folks who will take your roo will be putting it in the soup pot, so decide if you are okay with that if you go that route.

I'm not trying to scare you, but just alerting you to the reality that many roosters end up being. BYC is full of appalled owners as to how their sweet roo has suddenly turned so nasty (one word: hormones). Our silkie roo has always been great and gentle. Our Swedish roo so far has been okay, he has never attacked us, but since he is so big, we do keep our eye on him. The two roos don't ever fight, but the Swedish does bully the Silkie, especially around food.

 

[BernieTheMighty]

I have a family member who has a large mix of roos and hundreds of hens who would take my roos if need be. I think if any, my first to go would be the silkie because he is kind of a jerk in general to the other chickens.

 

[pdirt]

Your are lucky to have that relative! In that case, you could just go the wait n see route. But surely do get yourself a bunch more hens soon. Also, be sure you have a coop large enough to house that many chickens. A coop for 40 chickens would need to be about 200 sq feet (20'x10'). A run should be about twice that size.

 

[BernieTheMighty]

Does a bantam roo need 10 bantam hens or uh less full size? He is just an ittt bitty guy.

 

[pdirt]

Not necessarily. I'm not an expert on all the terms, but I think it's something like this:

bantam - small chickens
large fowl - regular sized chickens
extra large fowl - really big breeds like Brahmas or Jersey Giants

We had a Jersey Giant once and once we figured out it a was a roo, it went into freezer camp. It was a HUGE chicken. Brahmas are pretty darn big, too. Our silkie roo seems to do just fine with both our bantam and large fowl hens.

 

[sjturner79]

If you have a way to keep them seperated but within site you can keep the current mix . We have a farm nearby with 12 hens and 6 Roos. The 12 hens are free range and 5 of the Roos live in a seperated coop, but the free range roo get rotated every 2 days, so they all get about 4 days a month with the hens.