Three hens and a rooster!

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clucknorris1

clucknorris1

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Hi all, I've been lurking as of late but have officially become a member. We have 3 (originally 4) hens and a surprise rooster who so far has justified his continued existence by generally protecting the flock (except for what we believe was a fox incident with our small black one but she tended to lag a fair bit behind the group).

The rooster is a bit aggressive but our 4 year old is learning to stand up to him (shocking amount of life lessons there), and I've been handling him a lot - hoping his hormones calm down a bit, but who knows (maybe you do
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So far, they free range full time - we have a large herding dog who generally keeps most predators at bay, and they get along well with him except when he tries to eat their feed. One is older than the others by about 6 weeks and lay her first egg yesterday.

We're getting 15cm of snow tomorrow so that should be interesting. We've done a sand bedding and will be putting pine shavings on top for warmth through the winter - the coop is big enough for them but also small enough that I'm concerned (maybe wrongly) about the air quality if we did deep litter.

That's pretty much it, we named them and have fully become chicken people - evidenced by our talking more about the chickens than our kiddos at parties!

That's pretty much it about us, very happy to be here! You'll be seeing me around for sure.

ETA: We don't know what breed they are. Likely a Canadian breed or one that does fairly well in zone 5 - a local farmer hooked us up with them and I keep forgetting to ask him what the breed is. If you know I would love to find out!

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clucknorris1 said:
Hi all, I've been lurking as of late but have officially become a member. We have 3 (originally 4) hens and a surprise rooster who so far has justified his continued existence by generally protecting the flock (except for what we believe was a fox incident with our small black one but she tended to lag a fair bit behind the group).

The rooster is a bit aggressive but our 4 year old is learning to stand up to him (shocking amount of life lessons there), and I've been handling him a lot - hoping his hormones calm down a bit, but who knows (maybe you do
1f602.png
)

So far, they free range full time - we have a large herding dog who generally keeps most predators at bay, and they get along well with him except when he tries to eat their feed. One is older than the others by about 6 weeks and lay her first egg yesterday.

We're getting 15cm of snow tomorrow so that should be interesting. We've done a sand bedding and will be putting pine shavings on top for warmth through the winter - the coop is big enough for them but also small enough that I'm concerned (maybe wrongly) about the air quality if we did deep litter.

That's pretty much it, we named them and have fully become chicken people - evidenced by our talking more about the chickens than our kiddos at parties!

That's pretty much it about us, very happy to be here! You'll be seeing me around for sure.

ETA: We don't know what breed they are. Likely a Canadian breed or one that does fairly well in zone 5 - a local farmer hooked us up with them and I keep forgetting to ask him what the breed is. If you know I would love to find out!

Click to expand...
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Maybe red sex links? Please be very careful with your son and the cockerel. I love my beautiful boys (Being human aggressive here is a one way ticket out.) but there are tons of stories on here of children and even adults being hurt by roosters.
 
Oh I know... I'm especially terrified of eyes getting pecked - pretty much my worst nightmare. She's not really allowed to go close to the rooster unless I'm with her, the problem was when she was getting off the bus after school - he would start to chase her and she would run away which just made him more set on catching her. Now she knows to stomp towards him and he backs off right away.

He still may end up being dinner if he keeps it up - he'll try if you give him a chance, but otherwise he's pretty good. He doesn't bother the dog or visitors. I feel a bit better letting the hens free range with him around so we'll see.
 
I would put your daughter first, roosters are capable of great harm to faces, and especially eyes. Because children are closer to the ground that adults - more serious harm is done to them.

There is a glut of roosters on the market including some really good ones that are NOT human aggressive. There is never a good reason to keep a bad roo. This is not your daughters fault - all blame in on the rooster. You can get another rooster easily - you cannot get another daughter like her.
 
Hello there, and welcome to Backyard Chickens! I am so glad you joined us, I do hope you will make yourself at home here. Enjoy BYC! I agree with DDiva, my little sister suffered two rooster attacks to her face (not my rooster, thank goodness) and she has scars 5 years later, and ALMOST lost her eye. Not pretty.
 
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Thanks for joining us!
 
Hello from Kansas, clucknorris, and :welcome! Pleased you joined our community! Best wishes to you and your flock! :)
 

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