So...do roos ever turn maternal??

[sred98]

I have an EE that I bought as a roo. His comb is pinkish red, but he has recently taken over the care of some babies that I just turned out of the brooder. He feeds them, rounds them up at night, they sleep under his wings. I've never seen this with any of my other roos. He is about 15-16 weeks, and they are about 9 weeks.

Do roos do this, or is there a chance it is a female?

Shelly

 

[DuckLady]

I have a drake that steals eggs and sits on them until I take them away from him. WHile I am taking them, he bits me and is all mad.

Then he goes off to the outside and does a big broody poop.

 

[sred98]

Quote:
OMG that is hilarious! Well...not for you!

Shelly

 

[DTchickens]

i have heard of roosters Seriously.. Setting on eggs. And have heard of a few chicken breeds where the roosters will take care of chicks while the hen is absent doing whatever..

 

[momof247371]

We had a banty hen hatch out 7 babies. We just started letting them run the yard, the other day one of our roos flew over the fence, i though "o jeeze, he's gonna eat 'em". NOT the case at all..... he called the hen and chicks over to eat and when the hen went into the barn he stayed behind with the chicks, he took them all over the yard. When the kids or the dog got to close his wings would go out!! it was too cute... Now we have 3 roos that take shift with the chicks, infact, now the roos spend more time with them than momma

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

I have a roo that lives in our nursery coop with over 70 chicks. He helps feed them and he is soooo sweet to watch with them. He doesn't try and hatch chicks though but he does his part

 

[SproutGirl]

How cute! Let them be dads!

Look at what I saw in the news today--2 male penguins raising a chick together.



June 04, 2009
Two Male Penguins Take a Chick

And baby makes three for two male penguins at Germany’s Bremerhaven Zoo.

"Z" and "Vielpunkt" have adopted the baby chick they were tasked with looking after before it hatched.

“Another couple threw the egg out of their batch,” the zoo’s vet said in a statement. “We picked it up and put it in the nest of the gay penguins.”

The penguin duo immediately took over and looked after the egg for 35 days before it hatched. The chick was born on April 25, and the penguin duo has been looking after it since.

This isn’t the first time "gay" penguin parents have been in the news.

Central Park Zoo’s Roy and Silo made headlines for trying to incubate a rock in their nest. A zookeeper eventually gave the penguins a fertile egg to hatch. Months later, a chick was born.

Scientists eager to prove that homosexuality is not a choice have used Roy and Silo as an example, arguing that if it happens among animals in nature, it can't be immoral.