Poultry

A Tale of Two Roosters

A Tale of Two Roosters - The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
A Tale of Two Roosters - The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
RIP Del, the Delaware rooster.

Replacing My Rooster

Earlier this year my rooster, Del the Delaware, fell ill. It was obvious he would not survive much longer, so I put him down. Since then there has been no one to serenade us in the morning and I’ve really missed hearing the cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster. I decided to put an ad on Craigslist offering a new home for an extra rooster or two. Quite often people order pullets and end up with a young cockerel in the mix. So, why not give an unwanted chicken a new home?

 

A Tale of Two Roosters - The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
Brutus is a brute!

 

Two New Roosters!

A really nice lady contacted me about her 2 extra roosters. She had too many and wanted to find a new home for these guys. We made arrangements to meet. I brought my cat carriers (they get used for chickens more often than cats) and headed to Farm and Fleet, halfway between my place and her farm. It was really nice to meet her and her husband…my kinda folks. He wore a cowboy hat adorned with bear claws and she is a very down to earth lady. We chatted about chickens and raising your own food, hunting and butchering, gardening and whatnot. I sent them home with a bag of Egyptian Walking onions for their garden.

 

A Tale of Two Roosters - The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
Popeye was no match for Brutus.

One Rooster Too Many?

I brought the new boys home to meet their harem of 43 ladies. Everything seemed fine for several hours. All was well each time I checked in on the flock. I figured they would get along since these roosters were raised together.  They seemed content to dance for the girls and investigate their new digs.

Then… all heck broke loose!

 

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He really likes to strut his stuff.

 

As I walked out the kitchen door toward the coop, I heard a terrible ruckus. Squawking and blood curdling screeches emanated from the pen. I found the two roosters locked in mortal combat. Feathers were flying, blood was spattered on their necks, and they seemed intent on doing each other in. I separated them and checked for serious injuries. There weren’t any gaping wounds, just some bloody spots on their combs…mostly on the small brown rooster.

 

Maybe This Isn’t Going to Work…

The flock settled back into their normal routine. The roosters each retreated to opposite ends of the coop. I turned the light off and closed the door to the pasture, gave them their evening meal and clean water, then headed to the house.

 

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This morning the little brown roo had one eye closed and  was huddled behind a nesting box and one of the hens. The arrangement obviously isn’t working out, so I moved some things out of my garden shed and set it up with a dish of food and water. I hastily erected a pen and moved the brown rooster to his new home. I assume that, although they were raised together and got along well in the past, having a flock of hens made them too territorial.

 

Naming The Roosters

It’s not working out quite the way I planned, but things seldom do. I’ll need to figure out a better long term solution for housing two roosters separately. In the meantime, I named these two Popeye and Brutus…which seems fitting now that they are enemies.

 

Update: This all happened several years ago. Since then, Popeye and a couple of my hens went to live on another homestead. Brutus chased off a fox and lost his tail feathers in the process. He has since passed away. RIP Brutus.

 

17 Comments on “A Tale of Two Roosters

  1. Were you able to find out exactly what breeds the two roosters are? Hard to separately pen them (even with their own hens) I know I wouldn’t have room to do that here – they all stay in one henhouse and then free range. We have one Buff Orpington roosters who is the largest and thinks he is the boss! We call him The Supervisor, haha. Have 4 Black Cornish roosters that have grown up as chicks with him. They are very “active” constantly chasing the girls and if the Super hears untoward activity he “comes a runnin” and chases the usurper away from HIS hen. No real fights yet – just minor skirmishes – the Black Cornish are smart enough to run away fast!

    1. Hi Linda,
      I bet those Cornish roos keep the super pretty busy 😉 Sounds quite amusing! I have had roosters that got along fine in the past…other than the occasional scuffle.

      These guys appear to be mixed breeds. Ginette said that the little brown one was an Americauna, but he looks more like a brown leghorn mix to me. The large white one does look like an Americauna mix. He is much larger and more aggressive.

      I like the idea of mixing up the genetics in my flock and selectively breeding for resistance to disease, foraging and egg laying abilities, larger carcasses, and maybe even egg color. We’ll see what happens. 🙂

  2. Hi Lisa! Great post! I would imagine that separating two fighting roosters is no easy task. Our favorite nemesis are Seinfeld and Newman. Hope you are well!

    1. Hey Colin,
      I got a giggle from your favorite arch nemesis 🙂 Love it! I just might have to set up a poll to name the roosters…’cause I like them all! Thanks for the suggestion!

    1. Great suggestions, Little Hippy! I’ve got to put my thinking cap on and make a decision soon…before Big White and Little Brown get stuck in my head. 😉

  3. Hey Farmer Liz!
    I’m planning to do that once his eye heals up. It isn’t looking very good right now, so we’ll wait and see. Thanks for the suggestion!

  4. Hi Lisa, we have experienced the same “mortal combat” many times, so we were very surprised to find ourselves recently with 3 roosters who all go on with each other. One was the big daddy rooster, and the 2 others were his sons who were raised together. I think the secret is that we have 3 pens, each rooster has 5-6 hens in his pen, when we let them all out together, the hens stay with their roosters, there is little competition between them, and the roosters seem to leave each other alone. Maybe if you put some hens with the little rooster until they are all bonded, it will stop them fighting when they are all ranging together.

  5. Tybalt and Mercutio, the two fighters from Romeo and Juliet! Personally, I think they are both being silly since they have so many hens for the both of them! For heaven’s sake! HaHa

    1. Hi Vickie!
      That’s a mouthful! And you’re so right…I thought the same thing. But ‘Big White’ seems to think they should all be for him 🙂

  6. They need to be named after two famous characters who don’t/didn’t get along, nemeses if you will. Clark & Luther maybe!

  7. Butch and Sundance? Bert and Ernie? I named my 2 female Pygmy goats Lucy and Ethal. Some names just seem to go together.

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