Tiny crowers!

[chuckachucka]

I have three little cockerels with an adoptive mother hen. They are all tiny bantam mixes (two serama x pekin bantams and a Belgian bantam x pekin bantam). Only three chicks hatched and they all turned out to be male so I am planning to find them new homes as I already have two mature roosters. Hey ho that's the way it goes sometimes.
What i have found interesting/annoying is that all three chicks began crowing at just 8 weeks old. My older roosters started crowing at approx 16 weeks and 13 weeks each. I have never had cockerels crow so young, and all three of them!

Plus the hen they are with always mothers her chicks 3-4 months and it keeps her so quiet and happy (otherwise she can be a big loud treat hogging bully), so I was hoping to keep them all together until she weaned them. But the racket they are making at 5am is making me rethink this plan.

Also one of the cockerels, now just 9 weeks old, has started love dancing his mother and seriously attempting to mate one of my other hens, the precocious little bugger. He seems to act like a much older cockerel.

Just wondered is it common for cockerels to mature this fast?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Some bantam roosters can be troublemakers very early. They do mature faster, and are usually more confident than bigger breeds.

I have a 3 month old bantam cochin this year that already has been mating the pullets. He's been removed for a bit. A few years back I had one that was already dominating adult hens at 8 weeks, including his mom, he was a Cochin d'uccle mix. He never improved and became a tiny roast chicken. Bantam roosters in general are usually hyped up all the time.

 

[Shadrach]

I have three little cockerels with an adoptive mother hen. They are all tiny bantam mixes (two serama x pekin bantams and a Belgian bantam x pekin bantam). Only three chicks hatched and they all turned out to be male so I am planning to find them new homes as I already have two mature roosters. Hey ho that's the way it goes sometimes.
What i have found interesting/annoying is that all three chicks began crowing at just 8 weeks old. My older roosters started crowing at approx 16 weeks and 13 weeks each. I have never had cockerels crow so young, and all three of them!

Plus the hen they are with always mothers her chicks 3-4 months and it keeps her so quiet and happy (otherwise she can be a big loud treat hogging bully), so I was hoping to keep them all together until she weaned them. But the racket they are making at 5am is making me rethink this plan.

Also one of the cockerels, now just 9 weeks old, has started love dancing his mother and seriously attempting to mate one of my other hens, the precocious little bugger. He seems to act like a much older cockerel.

Just wondered is it common for cockerels to mature this fast?

bantams do seem to mature quickly and it's always the mother they try to mate with first in my experience. If they have female siblings then it tends to get funny because their sisters won't have any of it and bash the over excited boys.

 

[chuckachucka]

My two older roos are both bantams but they are fairly easy going and matured much later. I've read that having a mature roo around can encourage young cockerels to get their crow on earlier, which is interesting. It is certainly 'interesting' when they all start their chorus in the morning!

So far the girls are resisting and the adopted mother, being a large breed and therefore about ten times bigger than the little ones, is completely nonplussed by the wing dancing. If she had an eyebrow she would be raising it at them.