Fred

I decided to get a rooster, it was quite easy actually as by fall there were many people wanting to give away roosters. I had two roosters close by to pick from, one was a large fellow with dull black trim on his tail and neck feathers, very quiet but a mixed breed with no comb. The other was a multi coloured smaller rooster, he had a lot of Bantam in him so I figured he would make a better mate for the hens.

It was hard to get a good picture of him as he always ran away and never stayed still long enough to get a good shot. In the sun he was much better looking than I caught here. I called him Fred. The girls when they came to me had been spoiled with treats and so, loved the sight of humans. Fred on the other hand was raised free-range on a farm by his mother and had almost no human contact, the result was a rooster almost as wild as a partridge. I felt sorry for him as every time I went to the coop, he had a melt down.

Soon however I was not very impressed with his behaviour. The girls had understood right away he was male and did not mind him. Fred on the other hand in spite of being one or two years old, was afraid of the hens and would attack them as if they were other roosters instead of courting them. It became bad enough that if Fred came outside the girls went in and if Fred went in they came out, they took a vote and wanted nothing to do with him.

It took a long while for him to finally settle in, he began to act like a rooster after almost two weeks but the stress had caused the hens to almost stop laying. He was better with them but still would not sleep near them at night, he was so flighty that he still was afraid of the girls, if I was not around them much for a day or two, he would become like the day I got him all over again, his melt downs were causing the hens to become nervous as they could never figure out what he was seeing to make him so upset, which of course was just me.

In the end I kept him for about a month or more, I liked his crowing in the morning, loud enough to be heard but soft enough that he never bothered the neighbors. He had been good for a couple of weeks and was king of his castle, suddenly his mean streak came back and he would attack the hens or pull their feathers out, often I caught him grabbing them by the tail and there was no reason for it as the hens would let him mate with them. I decided since the girls were such sweet hens, it was not fair to them to live with such a bully so I took him back, since he wants to fight all the time, there are about ten other rooster there to fight with. He is free to range again there so I hope he is as happy as a chicken can be.