Two roosters...

[Pojojuniper]

Great info! Thank you. The other evening we saw the louder one get a cricket and alert the girls.

This behavior is hilarious. We throw them treats and our rooster, Smitty, alerts his ladies and some of them fall for it. Others have caught on to his game a little faster.

 

[kansaswill]

I would keep the quiet one and ship the other out.

I would too the constant crowing is very annoying and I worry our neighbors will complain.

 

[kendra1985]

Unfortunately you don't have roosters yet. You have immature cockerels that are still maturing. They are juveniles trying to find their way. As they mature they can change. They know which one is dominant for now but that can change as they mature at different rates. To further complicate it, they affect how the other behaves. The competition between the two can intensify their behaviors. Doesn't sound like that is much of a problem for you yet and it may never be. The more dominant one can suppress the behaviors of the other. The submissive one may not try to mate the girls nearly as much as he normally would if the other were not around. He may not tidbit (find them food) or break up fights. You never know how he may change if you remove the dominant one. The submissive one may go from the sweetest thing ever to a real brute if he wakes up one morning charge or he may remain great. The dominant one may calm down some with the competition removed or he may turn into a brute.

To me we are talking about two totally separate things. One is how he interacts with the pullets. At 19 weeks the cockerel is immature and so are the pullets. Though it may look like it, he is not a sex crazed fiend trying to fertilize eggs. At that age the mating act is more about dominance. The one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or by force, even if just temporarily. The pullets generally don't want to be dominated so they run away. His hormones are telling him to dominate, become the flock master, so he chases. When the girls grow up they often want a male that will act like a good father to their babies. Immature cockerels have real problems meeting those standards. When the males and females grow up they tend to settle down in behaviors and become a very peaceful flock. But not all males mature as we wish they would. Most can impress the girls with their self-confidence and magnificence, no force required to take over as far as the girls go. But some never have that maturity and cannot impress the girls, they have to rely on brute force. Some hens will never reach the point that they accept the dominance of a rooster. When you combine a weak willed rooster and a really dominant hen it can get violent.

The other thing is human aggression. Part of a rooster's job is to protect his flock. (Some are much better at this than others but that is a different discussion, nothing to do with human aggression.) Many roosters can handle humans around their flock with no problems, but some can perceive humans as threatening the flock. In some cases it can be understood. Several years back a five year old boy would chase hens around the yard. It did not take long for the rooster to attack that boy wherever he saw him, even way on the other side of the yard. What had been a perfectly good rooster had to be permanently removed. Sometimes though a male will attack about anybody for no understandable provocation. He might leave you alone but attack your spouse or family members. There are several theories on how to raise a cockerel so he doesn't do that. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail. Many people can train a rooster to not attack them but that doesn't mean they have trained them to not attack a spouse or kid. Sometimes they attack someone wearing a certain color or article of clothing, boots or a certain pair of shorts can be the culprit. Things can be fine until all of a sudden they are not. Just to be clear, a human aggressive rooster or cockerel has to go.

For both of these, I think it is a crap shoot. Some behaviors are learned, some are inherited, some may just be from random circumstances. I personally don't see any reason to think getting one next year will be any less of a risk than trying one of the ones you have this year. As to which one this year I don't know. It does not mean that either one is a good choice. If it doesn't work out you may need to start over next year anyway.


I would not expect it to be. To keep a hen laying fertile eggs they only have to mate once every 9 days to two weeks. It can vary a little. With a flock of 15 hens most roosters can easily manage that.


I don't think it will affect his crowing. As long as no one is getting injured I don't see any advantage in temporarily removing him. If one is getting injured during his adolescent phase I could see removing him for a couple of months to see if he matures enough to overcome his juvenile hormones. I've never done that.

Good advice. I find myself stuck in this situation however we already got rid of our dominant rooster, just 2 days ago and now our submissive one is starting to bully the hens and won’t let them out of the coop or chases them when they come out. They are still young, just started laying but now I am wondering if we made the wrong choice and will have to get rid of this rooster.