Last week I had enough of the crowing and fighting among the nine roosters born in February of this year. They were old enough to eat or move along. I did not need more meat in my freezer so I offered them for free, but no takers. So I got busy making 3 triangle cages for these bullies to take them to auction.
They were all hatched by my broody game hen. They were very pretty and good roosters but I had too many. They chased my hens off their nests and it was very noisy on the farm with all the in fighting. The night before the auction I went into the coop to take down the sleeping roosters and put them in the cages. This usually goes very easy. Not this time. It was screaming, fighting, pecking and a throw down in the coop by the big white roosters you don't see. I got them put in the cages and got the rest caged, but wow what a pain. Never in my 11 years of poultry raising have I had this much rooster drama. Not even when I had mean roosters. Turns out my roos had a bit of asshole in them, from their game hen mother. So this was the right choice to remove them from our farm.
I kept a French, a banty and a small game roo for my hens. The French roo is a great one for our farm. He is descended from a long line of mixed roosters we raise on our farm. We raise pretty and kind roosters that walk all over the place hunting for food. We cull the bad ones even if they are pretty. The hens we keep until they die. Hens will keep laying even in old age. I feed a mix of scratch, scraps and protein to keep my hens plump. And we have solar lights in the coop for the shorter winter days, keeps they laying all winter.
I just redid our coop to keep the birds away from the ceiling (fronty combs) and a bit lower in the coop. I also removed nest boxes they were not using. I cleaned out the old summer mess and put in fresh bedding and straw. We are all set for winter on our farm.
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