Rooster management, part one

When a young cockerel starts challenging you

This guy is a cockerel hatched in my office in April 2020. Since I was the one who incubator-hatched him, he didn’t grow up with a mama amongst the flock. He noticeably never was a lap chick, always wanting to be independent. His only male hatch-mate, a couple of weeks younger than him, had it out as 3 and 5 week olds in some ferocity, then again at 3 months and even after that, once the hormones hit, this guy was quite insistent on chasing his buddy when in the coop, which I needed to handle by giving them more space during the daytime. Eventually, they arranged themselves.

But then, one day when he was around maybe 7 months, I felt a thud against the back of my leg. Well then, that was startling and …not acceptable.

So right there, when something like this happens, there are some things to be aware of and there are some things I do: step towards him, chase him, pick him up, offer food, not necessarily all at the same time.

Remind yourself that you are way bigger than him, you are smarter than him, he is only doing what his hormone driven behavior tells him and you own the space, and in this case, he does not even have spurs yet.

He is trying to establish dominance. If you walk away, he “thinks he won”. If you ever watched rooster fighting, there is the pre-fight behavior, the fight, and the post fight behaviour. The loser ends up walking or running away and from there on makes room for the dominant rooster, the one who won. So walking or running away is the thing not to do when he has already challenged you in your territory. You are the one who walks = you declared yourself the looser.

You turn around, make yourself big and step towards him. If he is really gutsy, he will take up the challenge, but you can chase him, pick him up and put him in a holding space if you don’t have the time, but do a little chase till he runs. I have had to do that a number of times till he got it. I have read that some people are quite severe in demonstrating who is the boss.

But I know he is still “thinking” about taking his chances sometimes, as you can see in this picture sequence.

It is his stance and the way he looks at me, though he didn’t go through the moves of pecking and scratching and giving me the wing. However, when he approaches as I offered food, he first went sideways (like they do during a challenge) before giving in to treat temptation. And this brings me to the other thing I do: offer food…hehe, this confuses them…because, that is not what establishing pecking order is about.

So this guy is young, he has no spurs, his hormones just come in plus mating season will start, and I might have to chase him again, and maybe even a little more vigorously and maybe pick him up. But the thing is, he needs to get it that he will never be the boss of me, and hopefully this will transfer to other humans, which don’t have any business walking into the coop and run without letting me know, and out in the field, there is enough space. And space is hugely important. There has gotta be enough of it, and then, don’t invade his (as a visitor). Roosters like this might go up against predators to protect their flock, so it is a balancing game

If you KNOW he respects you but other humans who enter “his” space will be challenged, then they need to either respect the space and don’t enter the zone, or need to establish pecking order, or, you can put him in a holding space till visitors have left.

For me, this is an experiment as he is the first of my roosters trying this. Why him and not the others: hormones/genetics and who knows what triggering event.

Do I want to breed this guy? I will evaluate that when he is a little older. Do I call him aggressive? No. He is not “aggressive” and that label isn’t helpful. He does seem to have more dominance behavior than my average roosters have had over the years, and time will tell how it evolves. It requires continued awareness. My hope is this: he will respect me and other humans and stay away from them, but be vigorous in protecting “his” flock from any other predators.

TORN EARLOBE at the insertion point….Never a dull moment. Yesterday, 2 of the roosters resettled their pecking order.

All was resolved, Blondie won. However, just before roost time i noticed the upper attachment of one of the earlobes of our Blue Andalusian (Blue Jr) was torn off..

This was leaving the entire earlobe pouch wide open. geez.

I was late, getting dark, I had no help.

All I could do was clean and apply Manuka honey to the edge and then a dressing (despite hobbled, he had scratched the steri-strips off in 3 seconds, which is when I knew I had to hobble him tighter).

Things looked ok this morning, but the wound edge was already hard and would have had to be re-cut to suture. Still without help, i opted to not do that, but re-dress. Will try to at least take one picture tomorrow. BTW. the wattles will heal. Anything black will fall off. That is just the way it goes.

BTW, I did redress this one a little looser.

None of the few images online on chicken earlobe tears were anything near as bad or such unfortunate location as this guy’s earlobe. So I thought I’ll keep a public record.

Compatible – worth your time

Our 26 May chicks turned out the be mostly roosters – though we do have 9 pullets. Now  4 months old, they are separated into 2 groups – the mixed group, consisting of: 2 buttercup roos, 3 buttercup hens, 4 blue Andalusian hens, 2 Egyptian fayoumi hens and 1 rooster, 4 golden polish roosters. In the last few days, there has been a bit more chasing going on. Then there is the rooster group, which leaves the coop through a pop door in the back into the orchard part of the garden, and so far, not a single  roo has flown across the fences. However, if you walk all around the greenhouses, you get to see the mixed group through a wire fence.

Meet Gulliver – Gulliver travels

He likes the ladies – and if he were not chasing them so much, I’d let him be with the mixed group. This young rooster lad figured  out the lay of the land …he saw me walk it and followed me, I assume, one of those days a few weeks ago. Gulliver is the Egyptian fayoumi roo who was the very first of all to crow. Every morning and evening, Gulliver makes his rounds and  travels to the other side

of the greenhouse, and even to the garden entrance, looking for stuff & crowing everywhere. He is well behaved towards me at all times.

 

I called him over on WEEAC day to a special spot by the outside fence bed, then he finished his rounds. He takes treats from me, tells me when I need to turn the water on, checks out the greenhouse if I leave the door open, and – he hopes to get lucky with the hens – which occasionally he does when for some reason they err into the outside of their area. Gulliver has not shown any sign of territorial display towards me – unlike a few of the orchard roos. I call him Gully for short.

He was so used to walk to the front  of the garden, that he did so when we had 2 new 4 month old puppies running in there last week. He has to get through a dog safe fence to get there, but then didn’t find his way through back again fast enough. They caught him, but only by the wing tip before I lead them away …he walked off unscathed, but has not gone into that part of the garden since then ….but is still trying his luck with the ladies ….

This is Gulliver at 5 weeks:

Hahaha – I conclude after this afternoon’s little experiment: They seem to consider me a treat and food dispenser – much easier than to forage. Did I spoil them for good? Will they ever work by “working the soil”? They SEEMED to forage …..

My goal is:

• Happy healthy free range and predator safe chickens who work for a living by composting, fertilizing and tilling.
• Chickens providing eggs for the family and some friends
• A beautiful bountiful all organic and no till (no commercial till that is) garden, both flower and food, with areas where chickens can meet humans 🙂 with it being a positive experience for both.

I am working on solving this: how to get them to be well fed AND work the ground, eliminating the need to weed and buy fertilizer come planting season next year – without having a chicken tractor or raised beds available?

Ok, these are my first ever chickens, a straight run of 26 light assorted chicks, now almost 4 months old. Since yesterday, the chicken coop is separated into 2 pens with a separate exit/entrance for the rooster group, which stays in the orchard area. That leaves the 9 hens (or pullets at this age) and 7 other cockerels in the compost run and garden field. That garden field yielded very little produce this year — I used no fertilizer at all and barely weeded. So I found out: this does NOT work AT ALL to get any vegetables worth mentioning, thought the beans did ok. But then, I kinda suspected it. Looking at the overgrown garden I wonder HOW ON EARTH is that gonna get chicken-tilled? Sure, the chicks pretty much got rid of all the compost run vegetation, but giving them access to the garden field has barely lefty a mark so far.

Ok, it really has been TOO HOT so far to do much foraging out there, and it is also much more open, and they definitely prefer protected areas.

The little experiment:

Today, at 4 pm, I went out there to check on them:

They came running, their crops were empty and they wanted food. Since after some consideration I know that there will neither be time nor resources for a proper chicken tractor this year, I did an experiment: I took  a couple of hand-fulls of my night-time feed mix and threw it onto an area of about 1 square yard, right next to their current feeding area, where they get the kitchen scraps. They all eagerly went for it ….so I sat down in their old feed area, compost run 1, which I cleaned out yesterday. Wouldn’t you know it: they soon come over to where I was sitting and then – started gently pecking me – peck peck peck – the kind of peck that they know usually miraculously produces a delicious treat – only this time I didn’t have anything.

I went back to where I had thrown the grain/crumble mix and checked, just in case they had eaten it all – but NO — just a little “scratching with my fingers revealed PLENTY of grains still on the ground.

Did I spoil them for good?

That is expensive grain – not really an option chickies!!! I played mother chick (something I maybe should have done better and earlier ?) and showed them a couple of times that “scratching” does reveal food on the ground – BELOW the grasses – and some sure got it and were busy for a bit – there’s hope! Maybe????

Considering the garden weeding needs,  an absence of a chicken tractor, I am now thinking to “till” without a chicken tractor by doing this:

just giving them their food in a new area each week – progressing at about a 1 x 4 foot area every couple of days, at least until the rain starts, after which they will do their compost work in a covered heavily mulched area.

I’ll let you know how it goes with the tilling by moving the feed area.

Here is the current chicken feeding schedule;

Chickens will get fed kitchen scraps in the morning after having been left out. The feeding will be in a designated square footage. This would be easier if one had raised beds, but as it is, we’ll do the best we can.

Chickens can free range forage ALL day, weather permitting.

They will get kitchen scraps (provided by the householders of this property) again in the late afternoon  plus commercial soy free organic feed.

The feed is also available at night in the coop, just so they have something to do in the morning while they wait to be let out.

The goals again:

• Happy healthy free range and predator safe chickens who work for a living by composting, fertilizing and tilling.
• Chickens providing eggs for the family and some friends.
• A beautiful bountiful all organic and no till (no commercial till that is) garden, both flower and food, with areas where chickens can meet humans 🙂 and it being a good experience for all.

I am working on solving this: how to get them to be well fed AND work the ground, eliminating the need to weed and buy fertilizer come planting season next year – without having a chicken tractor or raised beds.

Will keep you posted.

 

…oh – 4 months – I better get some kind of a nest box soon …..

August 2012 – started the chicks and weeds website 🙂