The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[Lil Peeps]

@Lil Peeps this is a great thread and you will thoroughly enjoy it. A lot of great information is learned on here.

Two days ago my grandmother dropped of tomatoes for my chickens when they were free ranging and as she was walking away my BA cockerel out of no where starts chasing after her. I yell for my grandmother to stop and she does and turns around and looks at me. Now the BA cockerel goes behind and starts flogging her!! She never walked at him or near or anything. And she was about 20 feet away when he started chasing after her. He's never done anything like this to me or my mom who is there with them sometimes with me. How should I treat him going forward? Worst yet I have two younger siblings who go in the yard with the chickens sometimes.

Thanks! I am already enjoying it!

Exactly right about that! I used to wear a 6 1/2 until early adulthood, but I don't know, maybe because of my hippie barefoot years (never any shoes indoors, cheap shoes worn loosely all the time), my shoe size edged upward. The real issue is across the base of the toes, my foot is very wide, but the heel doesn't match up, so shoe shopping is always a nightmare. I come from a generation where they had those shoe fitting scales that slid and measured length and width and told what size you were, but those were actual high-faluting department stores, not WallyWorld. I bet no one even knows what those are now.

That's hard because he apparently saw her as some sort of intruder, not someone who should be there. But how to fix it, I'm not sure. I've never had any of my good-natured roosters ever threaten a stranger, even. though no one has approached them without me or DH beside them to let them know this person is okay. Now, if there were screaming, out-of-control youngsters who got into the pen with them, I would say that they might be flogged by any rooster, even a sweet one, because wild. raucous kids make all roosters nervous, but trying to psychoanalyze a rooster can be tricky at times. Who really knows what he was thinking? Maybe this is a precursor to aggression with folks he does know well, hard to say.

I MUST have tread, poop in it or not. I cannot risk breaking an ankle again. We live on rock-and-root-ridden mountain property with woods that drop mountains of oak leaves. Wet leaves will throw you on your behind if you have slick shoes.

Haha, Yeah, I don't wear any shoes inside either so I'll probably end up in the same boat. =)

 

[Wyatt0224]

I was watching the news this morning and it said the south is going to be drenched in rain. Some areas getting five inches of rain or more. Are any fires still burning?

 

[GingersHuman]

We're sure getting the rain...

 

[speckledhen]

The fires are out for the most part, I do believe. The Gatlinburg fires were out Thursday afternoon, thankfully. They can't survive this type of rain and maybe it will be wet enough that some fire-bug cannot start them up again for quite some time.

 

[1muttsfan]

I hope the firebugs they caught NEVER get out of prison

 

[MistyMountain]

Yay for good boots!! Dad bought some Danner boots for me last year from Cabelas. They were on a super sale and just what I needed for stomping around the property. They are women's, waterproof and fit perfectly. I too swap out chicken shoes all the time. I have my mudders and hiking shoes, but seem to have settled on using these for their ankle support. I always used to be a size 6, but after two children, my feet went up a half size and got wider. We also never wear shoes in the house. My chicken and chore boots get checked outside the basement door and then get placed in the boot tray in the closet just inside the door. I couldn't be more pleased with these boots. They'll do a great job when we start cutting and stacking next year's firewood this month.

The chickens love them, too. Even if I cheat and don't lace them up!

 

[getaclue]

@Lil Peeps this is a great thread and you will thoroughly enjoy it. A lot of great information is learned on here.

Two days ago my grandmother dropped of tomatoes for my chickens when they were free ranging and as she was walking away my BA cockerel out of no where starts chasing after her. I yell for my grandmother to stop and she does and turns around and looks at me. Now the BA cockerel goes behind and starts flogging her!! She never walked at him or near or anything. And she was about 20 feet away when he started chasing after her. He's never done anything like this to me or my mom who is there with them sometimes with me. How should I treat him going forward? Worst yet I have two younger siblings who go in the yard with the chickens sometimes.

Wyatt, while many on various threads talk about swings, treat bottles, etc. to alleviate boredom in the coop, my BA's are quick to notice any change(s) in the coop, and their surrounding, and they don't like change, nor do they adapt to change easily. Any changes, and they are sure to tell me all about it. They're very vocal. A good example is when I put a ramp in one of the coops. Instead of hopping from a higher roost, to the next lower one, then to the ground, they were jumping from the top roost to the ground. This contributes to bumble foot, so I put in a ramp. For over a week, they let me know it was a chicken eating ramp. They fussed at me about it every chance they got. It was near the coop door, so they didn't even want to go past it, out the door, into their run. From the first day I put it in, I grabbed the rooster in that coop, and helped him walk down the ramp, then the hens. By day 4 the rooster would use the ramp some. The hens were still convinced it would eat them. It took almost 2 weeks before they would all use it.

Your rooster knows you, and your mom. He doesn't know the "invader", and she is not part of the normal routine. She didn't approach him to establish herself as dominant, nor were you right there with her, so he would know it was ok for the "invader" to be there. Actually this is a good thing when it's a stranger you don't want messing around your chickens, but not in this instance. You might try socializing him a bit more.

My BA's were tame as could be, to me, but remember, they notice any, and all changes, and don't accept them readily. I have one daughter that is used to chickens, including roosters, so she knew how to handle herself in the coop. I needed her help with a couple things, and she had to know how to take care of my coop in the event I couldn't. That being said, the first time she went in my coop with me, it was something new, and they knew she didn't belong there. She got a lot of stink eye, and shoulder lean from my roosters. Bad signs. I fussed at them a little. She walked straight up the roosters, and they began moving out of her way. No more stink eye, or shoulder lean. Good signs. From the first day onward, they accepted her in the coop. Within a very short time her occasional visits here, and there, became business as usual.

My oldest daughter was afraid of chickens. It's taken awhile for her to overcome her fears, but she's fearless now. When I first introduced her, she was still afraid of the roosters. I told her she could be as afraid as she wanted, BUT her actions had to tell the roosters she was dominant. We did the same thing, as with the other daughter, and it worked out just fine. I've taken my grandchildren into the coop too, one at a time. One is 5 the other 3. While my daughters, and I can work the coop, and pick up the hens with the roosters present, I've made an exception when it comes to the grandchildren, due to their size, and jerky movements. They know to walk with me, straight up to the roosters, and get them moving away. They are not allowed to pet any of the hens until grandma pens up the roosters.

By socializing them properly with multiple people, my flock is not intimidated by strangers, and they don't seem to perceive them as "invaders", upsetting their normal routine. It's just business as usual.

I don't know if this will help, but you might want to try it.

 

[speckledhen]

Yay for good boots!! Dad bought some Danner boots for me last year from Cabelas. They were on a super sale and just what I needed for stomping around the property. They are women's, waterproof and fit perfectly. I too swap out chicken shoes all the time. I have my mudders and hiking shoes, but seem to have settled on using these for their ankle support. I always used to be a size 6, but after two children, my feet went up a half size and got wider. We also never wear shoes in the house. My chicken and chore boots get checked outside the basement door and then get placed in the boot tray in the closet just inside the door. I couldn't be more pleased with these boots. They'll do a great job when we start cutting and stacking next year's firewood this month.

The chickens love them, too. Even if I cheat and don't lace them up!

Uh, oh, you reminded me! Thea will be quite miffed with me. She is my habitual shoe-un-tier. She can't untie these boot laces so easily! And speaking of Thea, she was inside the nest yesterday, fitting it to her bum, making pre-egg laying movements in there, first one to do that so maybe eggs are coming soon from Hector's girls!



Speaking of roosters with strangers, Isaac was a bit leery of Ladyhawk the first time she visited, had never had any actual visitors come that close to him, just didn't come right up to the fence so I picked him up and brought him out, showed him she was a rooster-lover. Then, he was a-okay with her, even became a bit attached to her. A couple of visits later, she brought her then-teenage daughter. We were milling around talking when out of his coop comes Cheyenne carrying Isaac! LH's eyes were as big around as saucers and our jaws just dropped. She just went in, baby talked him and scooped him right up and he was in love. He was always quite the ladies' man, and it didn't matter if she had feathers or not, apparently.

This is what we saw:

Then, it progressed to this:

And then, this:

So this is Atlas's grandpa, Apollo's great grandpa. That line is heavily influenced by the Ike temperament, I'd say. And though the Delaware blood does not show in them now this far down the line, that temperament stays.

He was always the best rooster, ever. And of course, LH always had big old Suede on her lap. She won him over with blueberry muffins.

 

[h2oratt]

Are delawares known to have mellow temperaments or just the line you had.

 

[speckledhen]

Are delawares known to have mellow temperaments or just the line you had.

Well, Delawares are supposed to be a friendly breed, however, my very first ones were hatched from McMurray hatchery parents and were mean and flighty. Even the parents were culled for aggression by my friend who gave me the eggs. I sold off that first batch by 8-9 weeks old, they were so unpleasant.

The ones I have now came from a breeder's heritage line. She bred for temperament in addition to all the other traits the breed had lost when it was close to extinction and hatcheries did a crappy job of trying to bring them back by breeding in Columbian Rocks and Production Reds. So, I can't vouch for any Delawares other than my own line. The breeder is no longer breeding anything as far as I know due to health issues and a necessary move closer to her work (college professor), but she selected for every preferred Delaware trait without sacrificing temperament in the process. She had to talk me into allowing her to send me free hatching eggs, ostensibly to do a fertility test for her up and coming cockerel, but I think she really wanted to promote the breed and mitigate my horrible experience by giving me a better one with better stock.
The first bunch, I had to cull my male-he was very aggressive. Heck, she would have culled my male. But, I got some nice pullets. Later, she sent more eggs which Isaac and his girls came from, after changing up the bloodline a bit. Bingo, great roosters.


I have to add that I find Delaware chicks very "mouthy". They bite everything. They are, overall, a very intelligent breed and explore incessantly. Even now, my last Delaware hen, Georgie (named for her sire, George), will bite the fire out of you if you don't pick her up and lavish her with attention. She is a trip hazard. Her sister, Ellie, was the best of the Delaware without the irritating, attention-seeking part. Friendly, I like, but Georgie is a tyrant about it. That may be one reason the breed almost went extinct, LOL. They are not as heat tolerant as you'd think, either. Their musculature is very dense, maybe from their original intent to be a meat bird, prior to the CornishX. She's heavier than she looks, in other words.

Georgie, who will turn 8 yrs old in February and is currently laying.