Two birds show up - not like my other chickens - help...

[Mountain Life]

These two showed up on Saturday. They are roosting high in the trees. My rhode island reds chase them off if they come too close. The rooster has chased them to jump on them, I think, but they are much faster and smaller. Are they both hens? I haven't heard any crowing. Should I put them with my existing family, if I can catch them? Thanks for any input...

 

[nakstk]

Top one is a Roo, bottom looks like a pullet. I would not add them to your flock even if you can catch them. You don't know if they have any illnesses or diseases they could have or be carriers of. If you catch them put the in a quarantine area for a month before you put them in with your chickens.

The pullet still looks young, she is not red in face yet. She looks like an EE maybe. The roo looks like maybe a game bird mix.

 

[Mountain Life]

Thanks. If the top one is a rooster, then they will not ever get along. What breed are they - they are a strange looking bird like some mix. What do these like to eat? They don't seem to like what I'm feeding the other/regular chickens. I threw them meal worms and they didn't eat them, cheese, or the layena feed. They like the corn scratch mix. My husband went to the neighbor on Saturday and they said they were theirs but they can't catch them and they know we can't, so we're stuck feeding them. It gets cold here and rainy so I didn't want them to suffer - they seem to have a lot less feather covering than the regular chickens...

 

[nakstk]

If the neighbors cant catch them either then the chickens are probably use to being outside and fending for themselves. You might not have to feed them and they probably will find their own shelter.

 

[t8562005]

They look like american game fowl

 

[Mountain Life]

Is that a meat or egg breed?

 

[ramirezframing]

they are both some type of game bird, these are good free rangers and egg layers and mamas from what my neighbor says of his games.

 

[hdowden]

they are game birds possible american

 

[Mountain Life]

Well, it's raining now and they are standing near the pen and under the coop (the bottom is outside of the wire). I put some food under there to keep it dry. They hang out right here at our yard and around the coop until I let the others out and then they try to graze with them, but the rooster or the dominate hen run them off and then they hang in the woods until I put mine up or dusk. I don't know why they ran from the neighbors (they have a lot of barking dogs)? My husband said the dogs had been barking at dusk every day for about a week and as soon as those birds came over here, they're not barking like that - so that may be another reason he doesn't care about getting them back! LOL! Anyway, they sure seem like they want to be in that coop and in the family, but they won't have any of that. Could it change over time? Or, because there's a rooster it never will? I guess I can just have wild game birds living in the trees. I have the yard gard on 24 hours now - at night I face it towards the tree they're sleeping in because we do have opossum and raccoon here - maybe even weasels. The foxes can't get them up there. We've only lost one hen last January when I didn't put them up early enough and something got her 10 to 15 feet from me - figured hawk or owl. Looked for 3 weeks in the woods and never found one feather?? With that yard gard it's supposed to keep foxes and the like away so I figured it was a bird of some kind or else the yard gard doesn't work???? Thank you and have a great day!

 

[horsiefly53]

When we first got our chickens a couple years ago, we had a rooster suddenly appear in our yard. He was beautiful, big and white with speckles. Found out the neighbor adopted him, but he would rather be with our flock of hens so he stayed. This was before I learned about quarantine, slow introduction of new chickens etc. He is in a new home now with what was left of that flock after a couple raccoon attacks.