Tips for Raising Roosters

[dearmeghann]

The time has come - we finally have a cockerel! My sweet baby (used to be called Mama's Girl) finally tested out his crow yesterday. He's a sweet boy, and I want to make sure he stays that way.

I've been trying to research, and I've seen the same info circulating. So I wanted to reach out and ask BYC: what are your tips for a friendly, happy rooster? Below is an overview of our set-up and current flock. I'm curious to know what you found to be helpful, and if you see any potential issues in our future.

3 grown hens: a little over a year old

• BCM (head hen at the moment)
• buff orpington
• red laced blue wyandotte.

5 chicks: approx. 8-9 weeks old

• wheaten maran, my first roo!
• light bantam calico cochin, I'm almost certain he's going to be a cockerel as well
• dark bantam calico cochin, I'm thinking she's a pullet
• ayam cemani, possible pullet
• ermine ameraucana, jury's out. I thought she was going to be a cockerel, but she's slowed down and might be a pullet.

The numbers are off - 2-3 possible roosters to 4-5 hens. However, we do have two coops. The smaller coop will be great to separate for broodiness, illness, and possible roo-berty issues.

Big coop: they have 4.5x8, 8ft roosting bar, four nesting boxes
Attached roofed run to big coop: 8x16
Small coop: 4x4 coop in a 4x8 run
Attached tarp run to both coops: 10x13ish, with two grazing pallets

And at the moment, we have a small kennel that only the littles can run around in. Our big girls don't even seem to care about them, but I don't want to introduce them without a barrier until we're present. So maybe this weekend!

The bigs free-range when we get home from work, and have the entire weekend to roam around.

Feed: We're a Kalmbach family, so we're transitioning the bigs to the flock maker crumbles (they're not a fan of pellets). We have grit and oyster shells available. The chicks have chickhouse reserve, and the hens have henhouse reserve. Are the roosters able to have any of the Kalmbach reserve?

 

[Mother of Chaos]

...Feed: We're a Kalmbach family, so we're transitioning the bigs to the flock maker crumbles (they're not a fan of pellets). We have grit and oyster shells available. The chicks have chickhouse reserve, and the hens have henhouse reserve. Are the roosters able to have any of the Kalmbach reserve?

The roos can have the chickhouse reserve, but not the henhouse, which has the higher levels of calcium.

(It wouldn't hurt for them to eat it for a short period, such as while finishing off the last of a bag, but the less they have of it, the better for them.)

 

[dearmeghann]

The roos can have the chickhouse reserve, but not the henhouse, which has the higher levels of calcium.

(It wouldn't hurt for them to eat it for a short period, such as while finishing off the last of a bag, but the less they have of it, the better for them.)

Thank you! I'll make sure that we start buying chickhouse going forward. Our big girls will revolt if we get rid of their scratch ahhaha!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

One tip: don't cuddle them or make pets of them. When they become adolescents, they will regard you as part of the flock and will try to dominate you and teach you that they are the boss of you. A cockerel or rooster can actually hurt you, so don't baby them now.

 

[SamLockwood]

With that few hens you're going to have cull or re-home down to a single rooster.

I would recommend integrating them as early as possible: the adult hens will teach your young cockerels some manners.

I'd also second the recommendation against petting and cuddling the boys, chickens don't really comperhend physical affection like a dog or cat. For them physical contact is mostly related to mating or fighting / dominance. Sooner or later your rooster will intepret the petting and touching as you either dominating him or as mating. I do know of one amusing case where someone's rooster got in the habit of getting, shal we say, "affectionate" with their hand but most of the time it just leads to them getting human-aggressive.

You also don't want to let them get away with what I call "pre-aggressive" behaviors: aggressive pecking, trying to chase or herd you, or raising their hackles at you. Opinions vary on what to do, my preference is to stand up straight, shake my head "no" say "no sir" and then firmly but gently move him out of my personal space with the bottom of my foot.

Your exact posture or the words / sound you make doesn't really matter, just so long as you use consistent body language, tone, and cadence to express your disapproval. Never lean forward at a rooster while maintaining eye contact. For one thing, you're bringing your face that much closer to his beak. For another, you're taking the same posture a rival rooster makes when he's challenging and ready for a fight.

Another trick is when you're giving out food or treats, give it to the rooster first. Finding food sources is a thing they do to attract mates, and if he sees you feeding the hens he might decide you're a potential rival. If you present the treats to him first, he'll usually call the hens over with his peculiar clucking "tidbit" call and instead of being a rival for the ladies' attentions you're now his buddy helping him get laid.

Don't go by how they're acting now as what their personalities will be in the future. All chickens go through personality changes as they mature and roosters often have the biggest swings in personalities. You won't truly know what you have until they're at least a year old, and don't go by how human-friendly they are. It's not a great gauge of how good a rooster they'll be.

My current alpha rooster is an awesome rooster: he takes good care of his ladies, he's incredibly good at keeping an eye out for predators, but he's shy around people. When he was growing up I rarely even saw him as he'd usually hide from me.

The beta rooster is by far the most human-friendly, and probably the smartest bird in my flock as well. He's also a chatterbox, I don't think he ever shuts up during the day and crows quite a bit for a variety of reasons. He's probably had the most consistent temperament out of my three roos and if I wanted a rooster as a pet he'd be perfect. However, I'm happy he's not the leader of the flock because he's less concerned about organizing and protecting the flock and more about getting laid and filling his belly.

The gamma rooster started out as pretty friendly (and was the original alpha), but started getting borderline-aggressive at about 9 months of age. I seriously considered culling him as I always had to keep an eye out for him. However, I figured out bribing him with his favorite treat (he loves dry cat-food) and discipline when he got to uppity straighened him out. He's the largest out of the three, kind of stupid, and if I had small children I wouldn't have kept him as he's a bit ill-tempered. However, he's almost as good of a lookout as the boss-rooster and just as protective.

Another rooster I had in this flock was sort of middle-of-the road as far as temperament went: he was OK with people if not exactly friendly, and seemed to be decent with the hens. At around a year old, however, he turned into a little psychopath with the other birds: bullying and forcing himself on hens, picking fights with roosters and (most unfortunately for him) the guinea fowl.

As far as feed goes, I'm not familar with the feed brand you use. However, I actually feed my flock a non-medicated chick starter (Tucker Milling's is pretty much the same as the layer feed but with much less calcium and slightly more protein) and provide either oyster-shell or recycled egg-shells for additional calcium.

My roosters and male guineas don't need the extra calcium, and in fact it can give them gout and kidney problems later. The hens seem pretty good at keeping up with the calcium on their own, and overall egg-shell quality is the same or better