I agree totally on culling. Just never heard anyone mention they had seen this so
was curious.
It is very odd. Any chance something with genetics for that could have gotten into his bloodline?
Just had a little war break out among a couple roosters in my flock. Harley, my mille fleur SFH cockerel, got into a showdown with one of my euskal oiloa (EO) cockerels. Harley has been the lead rooster since earlier this summer. This show down has been coming for some time. The EO cockerel apparently decided that he was not going to back down and let Harley chase him any more.
I did not intervene figuring that it might be a short skirmish and be over. It did not end quickly. Eventually, the EO cockerel bested Harley. Both were breathing hard, were exhausted and had some blood running from the EO's comb. The EO is dual purpose chicken and his build had grown larger than Harley. They seem to have gone into separate corners but take after each other as soon as they get close. It will be interesting to see how they coop together tonight.
For those with more experience with chickens than me, I wonder how this will affect the flock ongoing. I can see where this will cause some additional instability until things sort out again.
I have a bantam Cochin and an EE that will do that. They fought to bloody messes any time they crossed paths. I ended up deciding the bantams have to stay in a tractor to keep the roosters from trying to kill each other. Hopefully your boys work it out. I do have a couple others who will fight if provoked by the other, to the point of drawing blood, but 5 minutes later, they're eating together.
Some of us are just real busy and don't post much, but read when we can.
I have SFH from all 3 importations. Lots of diversity! 8 breeding pens, will be increasing that number this spring. Getting lots of fun colorations from breeding the different groups together. Too much fun!
Doc
That is great!
I had a hen drop dead after acting sort of off for about 10 days. We had her in the house and had been feeding her scrambled eggs and layer crumbles and she seemed to be on the mend and then just dropped dead. I had a necropsy done on her and the findings were basically that she had heart failure. I just wondered if this is common in the breed or if anyone else has had any troubles with it in the SFH. She was about 9 months old.
I have had a couple die at about that age, but necropsy was nonspecific findings. So, no, no heart failure here.