Okay, we built the new pen. Now we have seven. Seven pens. Ten adult roosters. Two new crowing roosters. And probably four more coming up. Do the math. Any way you look at it, we have too many roosters.
In the big cage, Racer and his son, Blackcape, get along fine. There is a third rooster in there, however, Scrappy, that is not doing so well. With 30+ hens, 3 roosters should be fine. We had a cute little red rooster we wanted to keep in there, but Blackcape fought with him for an entire day, and we finally had to take him out. We traded him to Kui for Minerna, a Cuckoo Moran hen. But Scrappy was still there, and Blackcape was leaving him alone. But yesterday, Racer beat him up, probably for jumping one of his favorite hens. But after that, Scrappy has been giving Racer a wide berth. So it may be okay. Worth the scarred comb.
In the transition pen, we had three roosters, Sammy, a big combed multicolored rooster with three inch spurs, Rosy, a young rose combed rooster with a beautiful face, and Cocoa, a young but huge Cuckoo Moran rooster, and three hens. Surprisingly, all three hens were laying. But Sammy definitely had the young roosters on the run. If Sammy was downstairs, they were up; if Sammy was upstairs, they were down. But no one was getting beat up. When we built the new pen, we put Rosy and Cocoa in it with six of the juvenile hens from the family pen. Rosy is a scrapper, and, despite Cocoa's weight and size, he's a mild-mannered fellow, and Rosy claimed all the hens. Then we put Minerna in there, and Rosy wanted her, too. But Cocoa put up a fight and ended up bloody. When Rosy wouldn't let up, we had to remove him. However, the hospital pen was occupied, so we stuck him in the brooder room, it not being occupied at the moment. Now, the brooder room contains 40-50 day-old chicks fairly well. But an innovative, pissed-off rooster with an entire night to plan? No way. He found the cracked window, planned his route, and, at the crack of dawn, was high tailing it out across the yard to rejoin his hens. Our four chicken-chasing dogs took off, chasing him into the neighbor's yard,which is when I realized that a chicken was where he shouldn't be, and Kui and I went to the rescue. Me to round up the mutts and get them inside (Panter has yet to forgive me) and Kui to corner the roo. We finally got him. But what now. The current hospital cage resident was a young Cuckoo Moran rooster, so we put him in with Cocoa, and Rosy went in the hospital. We still don't know what to do with him. He's a beauty. And we have a hen that looks just like him. Hate to put him in the pot, but he doesn't seem to get along with anyone else. And Cocoa? So far, he's getting along fine with Chocolate Chip. As long as Chocolate Chip keeps running from him and leaves Minerna alone!
Why was Chocolate Chip in the hospital pen to begin with? He was an exotic free bird from McMurray that was in Tonto's pen. As soon as he started crowing, Tonto started fighting with him. Poor Chocolate Chip was so scared, he hid under the fence edge (very dangerous) and wouldn't come out. So we took him out, for his own sake. Since then, another rooster has started crowing, but we don't know which one, and haven't noticed any chasing! We hope that Tonto will accept one of them!
In Brother's cage, where we put the last batch of juveniles, there were two red and black roosters that were fighting amongst themselves. We gave one to Kui, but Brother and the one that is left are still arguing over the hens, and the hens don't like it much either. The brown egg layers are doing okay; lots of new eggs. But the Marys have all but stopped laying. We may butcher that rooster in the next rooster cleansing. The hens must be happy at all costs.....
No comments:
Post a Comment