So, I have 6 chickens, who were all supposed to be hens. Two of them turned out to be roosters. One is a white silkie, who seems to be the lowest as far as social rank, and I've never seen him mount the hens. My other rooster is a beautiful, gentle easter egger, who has never shown any aggression to me or my family, which includes young children. All my chickens are about 9 months old. In the last couple weeks, I have noticed that the hens are missing a lot of back and head feathers. His two favorite have huge bald patches on their backs. I don't want to slaughter him unless I have no other options, but I live in Wisconsin, and I know they wouldn't surive our winter with such huge bald patches. So, aside from either slaughtering my rooster, or making "saddles" do I have any other options to stop my hens from losing feathers? Thanks for any suggestions.
Some roosters, especially young ones, tend to be rough with their hens, even though they don't mean to me. It's just part of their mating, and it happens a lot that the hens' backs are left bare. If that is the case, you can buy what is called a "hen apron" or a "hen saddle", and basically it's a cloth cover that fits her like an apron and helps protect her back when the rooster is mounting her. Most roosters become gentler as they become more mature. I hope your rooster becomes gentle, and it sounds like he could be since he is not aggressive with people or kids.
Quote:I have new chickies too, was supposed to be 15 hens and 1 rooster. I think I have 2 roosters so I am going to try to give him away. They say 3 roosters are actually better than 2, but with this number of hens, 1 is best from what I've read in the chicken books. May have to give a few of the pullets away too so he'll have some gals to go with him. Trying to find someone who doesn't have any other chickens so they'll not have to worry about integrating them into an existing flock. I have a year old rooster and 6 nine month old hens. Red has worn off feathers from his gals through mating, even lascerated one's side pretty bad. I've tried to keep his "thumb" nails trimmed but they bleed so easily. I bought a Hen Saver saddle/apron and they work great! The hens accepted them fine and things are kosher now! Red gets to do his thing and the hens are protected! They work!
