Why I don't keep a cockerel.

Stop calling me Kyle! My name's Herbert!
I kept expecting the phone to go flying and cut out :D
 
I had a Welsummer cockerel and 4 Welsummer hens with the idea of breeding replacements. Unfortunately life didn't work out like that but that is a different story...

At one point I wouldn't go in the run - approx 80 sq metres as it was enclosed with 100 metres of electric netting, without taking a stick with me. I only had them for one spring but he became really aggressive towards me although I was very careful not to get between him and the girls. More than once I had to defend myself with my feet as he would fly up at me - nearly got a spur in my knee on one occasion. Another time I was bending over filling the feeder and he leapt at my rear end. Threats of "You'll be Coq-au Vin if you don't stop this "didn't seem to work, but swinging the stick as I walked in made him back off enough so that I couldsort out food and water and poo pick in the hen house
 
Ah not, that was because (1) I lost all the Welsummer hens to a mink attack and (2) I found I was restricting my house hunting trying to find somewhere I could keep hens who had always free-ranged. A couple of ladies in the reading group I attended took the birds - one the hens and the other the cockerel. Chris Mahon had the Solway coop and Jenwhen from the other forum had the two wooden houses.

When life finally gets back on an even keel I'll think about it again - after all, Cyril Bason's shop is only about 400 yards away. Don't know what the cats would make of free ranging hens though so I may have some of Jenwhen's Poland bantams because I have room for an enclosure for them.
 
PS. The mink also had a go at the cockerel - I was there and heard the commotion but couldn't see what was going on in the ditch. He reappeared a while later with quite a few tail feathers missing and it was 10 days before he started to crow again. The Legbars were well camouflaged among the shrubs and bushes near the stream bank and I suspect the Leghorns just took off. None of them would go near the stream after that.
 
So much misinformation and ignorance about roosters on many of the forums.
I've got 7 males here atm. I would never consider keeping chickens without roosters.
 
Ah, but don't forget the restrictions many people live with, in terms of local laws about keeping cockerals, and in terms of consideration for/complaints from neighbours. I have kept flocks with and without males, and whilst I would always choose to have a cockeral, I haven't always had the luxury of choice. Plus I have been lucky, I have only ever had one slightly boisterous male.
 
If you only had room for 3-5 hens and wanted eggs, you might think differently about adding another useless bird, Shadrach, however friendly. If you had one like the bird in the video, what would you do with it?
Good to hear fro you again, anyway. How is your flock doing?
 
There are few Kyle type videos about. From what I can bear to watch it seems the roosters are baited into this type of behavior.
I wouldn't keep chickens if I really had so little room and I would buy my eggs from proper pastured raised flocks.
People consider roosters to be useless because of how they keep their chickens. If they could see what a rooster does on a daily basis in a fully free range flock they might rethink their opinions.
If this site was easier to load picture and videos to I could present a decent case for my views.
Essentially it all goes wrong with the 'my flock' 'my hens' attitude. If you have a rooster then the hens are his, not yours, and that is what causes the majority of the problems.
Part of the roosters job is to protect his hens. More importantly is he protects his genetic investment from other roosters and predators. We (humans) are responsible for the majority of chicken predation.
I'll see if I can post an article without the pictures and video and still have it make sense.
The tribes here are doing okay thank you for asking. It hasn't been an easy year but the new replace the old and the old teach the new so I suppose things are as they should be.
 
You've made some very valid points Shadrach, the first is your comment " ...what a rooster does on a daily basis in a fully free range flock.."The majority of poultry keepers on here don't have room for a "fully free range flock" and as Mrs Biscuit says, we can be subject to restrictions about noise and nuisance caused to neighbours which means that keeping a cockerel isn't an option. My neighbours half a mile away across the fields could hear mine crowing but fortunately being farmers, they didn't mind.

The second was about protecting his hens - which was why I was always careful not to get between mine and his hens. However it is possible to get a really bad tempered strain in any animal. I had a beekeeper friend who had to re-queen all his hives because the bees were bad tempered - they would follow anyone who was anywhere in the very large garden looking for an opportunity to sting. I was feeding a friends hens for a couple of days and had been warned to keep an eye on the ram who was in the field. The first three occasions he was happy to let me scratch his head, the fourth time, I scratched his head and he then walked away as before but on this occasion, turned around and charged at me sending me flying, fortunately without any lasting injury.

There have always been "backyard" poultry keepers and we do the best we can for our birds - but some people take a delight in teasing animals and then blaming the animal for the consequent behaviour.
 
Margaid said:
You've made some very valid points Shadrach, the first is your comment " ...what a rooster does on a daily basis in a fully free range flock.."The majority of poultry keepers on here don't have room for a "fully free range flock" and as Mrs Biscuit says, we can be subject to restrictions about noise and nuisance caused to neighbours which means that keeping a cockerel isn't an option. My neighbours half a mile away across the fields could hear mine crowing but fortunately being farmers, they didn't mind.

The second was about protecting his hens - which was why I was always careful not to get between mine and his hens. However it is possible to get a really bad tempered strain in any animal. I had a beekeeper friend who had to re-queen all his hives because the bees were bad tempered - they would follow anyone who was anywhere in the very large garden looking for an opportunity to sting. I was feeding a friends hens for a couple of days and had been warned to keep an eye on the ram who was in the field. The first three occasions he was happy to let me scratch his head, the fourth time, I scratched his head and he then walked away as before but on this occasion, turned around and charged at me sending me flying, fortunately without any lasting injury.

There have always been "backyard" poultry keepers and we do the best we can for our birds - but some people take a delight in teasing animals and then blaming the animal for the consequent behaviour.
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I appreciate the space and legal limitations. I don't know how many males I've had here over the last ten years; perhaps one hundred.
Earlier in my life a cared for free range tribes in Hertfordshire, not far from Tim and I suppose I developed a love and respect for roosters then.
There are quite a few chicken keepers where I live who have smaller plots, some in towns, and trios and quads free ranging in a quarter to half an acre are pretty common. Different culture seems partly responsible for the rise in hen only flocks and the coop and run keeping method.
As you've probably gathered, it's a subject close to my heart. :)
We've had rams here and they do like to knock people down. Even the donkeys here didn't mess with the rams.
 
Shadrach said:
Different culture seems partly responsible for the rise in hen only flocks and the coop and run keeping method.
As you've probably gathered, it's a subject close to my heart. :)
Click to expand...

It's nothing new, before the advent of cheap eggs and cheap chicken meat lots of people kept a few hens at the end of the garden in a coop and run. 1930s semi- detached and terraced houses tended to have very long gardens, ours was 190 feet.

I can remember when we had roast pork or lamb on Sunday and a piece of beef mid-week, but rarely roast chicken because it was so expensive!
 
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