🚨Wanted: Tips for Raising Hormonal Bad Boys

Mrs. K

Free Ranging
12 Years
Nov 12, 2009
10,509
16,536
726
western South Dakota
You are still in the wishing stage. And making excuses for them. We have all been there. I know, and all of them posting know how badly you just want them to get along!

Be aware. This is not a single problem, and the problems are going to get worse, much worse. It is like gasoline and matches, just waiting to blow up.

You really need to pull out all of the boys, if you don't have room for them, cull them. Weeks ago, you could wait for someone to re-home them too, but you are running out of time.

Don't plan on keeping 3, plan on seeing how they turn out. A lot of roosters are not worth keeping, once they get past the darling stage, and you are rapidly approaching that.

Mrs K
 

room onthebroom

Animal-a-holic
Premium Feather Member
7 Years
May 4, 2015
13,781
134,396
1,567
33. N -117.W
I'm currently trying to rehome four of the cockerels. No luck yet.

As for the bullied cockerel, he is a Polish and his head feathers haven't been able to fully come in due to being picked on in the brooder.
At first it was not just the other cockerels who were picking on him. Which ever ones saw the blood from his feathers breaking would pick on him. So he was removed from the coop (long story) for about two days. I was hoping it hadn't been too long and set him in the coop while I was adding bedding to the box I was keeping him in, and two of the other cockerels immediately went after him. This was at night when they were all on the roosting bars.

This was obviously not a smart decision on my part, which I realized right away. I'm not sure I would consider this all to be aggression from the cockerels. It seems to me like they were just picking on him because of the bald spot and only attacked when I set him back in after being separated for a few days.

Aside from the situation with the polish (who is now in a dog kennel in the coop) the cockerels are getting along fine. The few times they've bothered eachother another cockerel broke it up.
Though I do have way too many at the moment and one of them likes to bite so I will be rehoming all but three.
I'm trying to figure out how to deal with them until they're gone if they do cause any problems.
Well hello Boo!

Kiki didn’t say the pecked one was a Polish. That’s a whole other issue. That hair is just too alluring for young birds not to peck at. We kept our Polish girls separate from the rest of the flock until they got bigger & the other birds figured out what was food & what wasn’t.

If it were just a rooster vs rooster issue, I’d keep the docile one.
 

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