The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Glad it's going well. The key is to allow chickens to live as natural as possible as far as flock structure and letting them do chicken things. It's normal for chicks to show up in a flock. It's unnatural for adults to kill young ones especially a rooster as he should assume they are his.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I don't know if i shared this here, but heres my lead rooster letting a chick peck his wattles the day i opened up the pen. He stood there calmly taking it, than gently walked away afterwards. He's a good rooster.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@oldhenlikesdogs

Are all of your roos so good with the chicks? I need to find some like that!

After yesterday...the boy did well for about 3 hours then was in a "knock-down-drag-out" fight with one of the 4 yo hens. This hen isn't usually an aggressor and the roo boy would normally run away from the elders so I'm not sure what happened. But neither was going to back down.

I was on the other side of a fence but had a hose right there so I sprayed them until they separated. But they just moved over and began the fight again.

If he had tried that with one of the younger chicks they would have been dead.

I think I've decided to process both SFH boys...even though they're beautiful. If I want to integrate a cockerel I can do it next spring and they're easy to come by. I'd prefer that the Buckeye boy I keep has an opportunity to become a man without that kind of business going on. Hopefully he'll be a great rooster.

Those SFH boys are both very beautiful - and probably could be integrated into a different flock without a problem. But I think there are too many habits and "pecking order issues" here that they won't work in this environment. Too bad there isn't anyone looking for sfh boys within driving distance.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Most of my boys get managed between the ages of 3 months up to a year and a half. Young roosters often need to be pulled. Occasionally I get a nice one who doesn't need any intervention from me, but that is rare.

Their surging hormones makes them crazy sometimes. I find it easier to remove them the minute I see them making trouble and they get penned up, many times for months. I don't tolerate bad behaviors, I get out my fishing net and those boys get caught, which also works to dominate them too.

They go into a decent sized pen and there they stay. 8-12 months is a good age to try to let them out to see how their behavior has progressed. Usually it's in the middle of winter when they are calmer and don't have as much spare energy or the urge to mate.

You don't have older roosters yet, which can help correct that behavior. My roosters come running from everywhere when a hen screams. Young roosters get put in their place. So I have assistance raising the boys. It can require some extra messing around to get them there but they do end up being assets.

So you have to decide if you have the extra space and patience to follow through with the boys. All my current mature roosters are keeper, and I've had plenty more before these that were equally as nice. I raise them similar as I raise my dogs, it's a process that requires corrections along the way, and you aren't done until they mature, than they usually are a joy to have around.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I forgot to add, that your roosters would definitely be removed, either temporarily or permanently. I personally might give the second one a chance to mature, they sure do sound rambunctious, and confident.

 

[lazy gardener]

My avatar roo loves his chicks. He will tid bit them, and when I show him a chick through the fence, he will come to the fence, and immediately start tidbitting. He inspects them quite thoroughly when I'm holding them. He's quite the family man: will often find novel nesting sites for the girls, and fluff up the bedding, doing the tid bit call, trying to entice them into "his" nest. If I have a broody, he'll hang out with her. When I was able to free range, he'd spend all day long accompanying his girls back and forth between nest and prime forage sites.

 

[Leahs Mom]

So....
Two things are going through my mind in response to what @oldhenlikesdogs and @lazy gardener posted.

One...
I could put the boy over in the little house and let him grow up. However, I wouldn't want to put him there alone. I'm thinking that living alone is not good for a flock animal. Last time the other boy (who is penned indoors waiting for the grim reaper) in with said boy, He attacked him. So...it might be too late to try that tactic?


Two...
I wonder how many roos Lazy Gardener has... Was this boy an "only cockerel/roo"? Did he have brothers he was in competition with?


Aside from the sfh, I really want the Buckeye boy to have the best opportunity to be successful. I was thinking that if I remove 2 of them before they are hormonal, he wouldn't have any competition to deal with. But, if for some reason I still have them, perhaps I should put all 3 in the little house together to mature without the ladies..... I may have someone that will take two of them but if that doesn't happen I have to decide how to handle them.

Thoughts?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Can birds visit the rooster in the pen? Either way, he will be an only rooster if you butcher his brother and will spend time in a pen by himself. If hens can come up to his pen during the day he will be fine, if he's totally isolated I probably wouldn't do it.

As far as the buckeyes, have you choose who to keep already, otherwise I start removing any troublemakers first until I'm left with a potential winner. Sometimes roosters act different without completion. Sometimes it's better sometimes it's worse. I than will try a different one. I don't usually have troubles rotating roosters in and out of the pen as long as they can all see each other and I haven't kept them separated too long.

In the end there's no one way to do it and things change as the roosters temperaments come out. I would figure out your goals and what you want, than figure out the best way to get there.

Some people like to let their roosters learn on the hen, I prefer to protect my hens from their advances and wait until they become gentlemen and they earn their love.

 

[Leahs Mom]

So...
Do you mean that you don't allow the boys around the hens at all until they're older?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Not if they make them scream run and hide. If they are trouble they don't get to make any. One rooster who has been penned up since this spring gets my broody hens. They break quickly and he's learning to be a gentleman from the cranky hens. The other pair has each other and they tidbit hens who come up to their pen. I currently don't have enough hens for these boys to be out, but as the pullets mature the single one will probably get released this winter, he will be about 18 months and will be mostly accepted, and should have good manners.

So they interact with hens, but mostly through a fence. They quickly learn how to tidbit and talk sweetly to the hens. I used to occasionally let them out to see how they are doing, but again there's enough roosters for now so they stay penned.