What caused my roosters to panic? You'll be surprised!

[Sunny Side Up]

I have one pen I call the "Dinner Theater" because I keep the young cockerels growing out for dinner in it. It's made from a trampoline too worn for bouncing, it still has the trampoline top and there's 2 X 2" wire all around the sides. There is closer-knit mesh around a quarter of the edge and that's where I placed long poles for roosts. It does a fairly good job of keeping them safe, but it's not thoroughly predator-proof.

So I was anxious the other morning when I heard a great commotion coming from that pen. I feel especially bad when a chicken gets preyed upon in circumstances where I could/should have made safer for them. I ran out to the back paddock and see all these big cockerels running around & around their circular pen, squawking & shrieking. What could be in there causing them such panic?

I was so surprised when I finally got close enough to see the culprit. He was small and white and chasing all the large cockerels around the pen. It looked like a pen of wild mustangs running around a corral with a short bronco buster cracking a whip after them.

That bronco buster was... a little bantam rooster! He had every one of those large cockerels running away from him! If they slowed down at all he would run up to them squawking & pecking. I usually free-range these guys every day, when I opened the gate they all tried to get out at the same time, it looked like a scene from The Three Stooges. And then the little bantam sauntered out at the end all by himself.

This is a little mixed-breed bantam that's special to us, we call him "Squeezy" because I actually saw his Mom squeeze out his egg. It was really funny to see, this little bantam hen named Finch was in a nest box one day and as I watched she would stand up almost vertically and make this high-pitched "EEEeee" sound as she strained to squeeze out the egg. She did this 4 or 5 times before the egg finally plopped out. I marked that egg & set it under the next broody hen I had. And "Squeezy" was the chick who hatched out. He's certainly worth his weight in entertainment value alone!

 

[Robin'sBrood]

I was very surprised to find out that my (former) smallish Lakenvelder cockerel was beating up my full grown, big SLW rooster. I nearly

when I saw Teeny chasing my Lacey boy all around the run. Then I took a closer look and noticed missing feathers on Lacey and the fact that he looked like he was losing weight. I knew then it was time to re-home Teeny.

 

[peepsnbunnies]

 

[The Chicken People]

 

[the simple life]

I had a tiny little d'uccle, the sizer of a coke can, and he would run up to all the other roosters in the yard and sqwak at them, he had to jump up to get high enough to yell in their face. Most of them paid him no mind but occasionally one would turn on him and he would run away. He would run and hide in the pen in the carriage house, he would jump up on his roost in the window and start yelling at them from there.
He was the funniest thing I have ever seen.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Yup, what these bantams lack in size they sure make up in sheer ATTITUDE!!

 

[davidb]

 

[pbjmaker]

I believe it - my fluffy white showgirl rooster rules the roost around here. My big black copper maran is terrified of him. It is hilarious to watch those little roosters run the big ones around. Saunter is a good word for how they walk when they get their way.

 

[kartking22]

Small doesn't always win.
My mother had a silky rooster that thought that he was king of the coop. He would always pick on all of the other larger roosters. One day he mistook the hen turkey as another threat to his brood. He started flying at her like he did to the other roosters until she had enough of his threats. They both squared off and when he would fly at her, she would smack him down with her wings and give him a "time-out" by putting one foot on his back. When he calmed down, she would let him back up. He would shake himself off and right back at trying to attack the turkey AGAIN. This time she would hold him down and peck him once on the back of the head. This went on time after time until we thought that the rooster was going to kill himself. We had to eventually seperate the two and the next day he was right back at it. He eventually gave up after a few days of getting his tail feathers kicked. Dumb rooster.

 

[~*Sweet Cheeks*~]

You're not going to eat him are you???