New cockerel - got a bit of a shock!
Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 12:20 pm
Some friends of ours are giving up keeping livestock - so we took on their geese, rabbit, chickens and a cockerel yesterday.
The poultry are all about 6 months old, and have been introduced and integrated into my existing flock of 12 hens. My hens have not had a cockerel around for over 12 months.
Well - the cockerel got up this morning full of the joys of winter and a new harem - and decided to try it on with one of my hens. Unfortunately my existing flock being that bit older than him - happen to be the same size or bigger than him.
I lost count of the amount of times he fell off and promptly got a good kicking and pecking from the hens. He looked so bewildered by his inability to bully these chickens he took himself off round the corner for a good sulk.
About 3 hours later, he found himself eyeball to eyeball with one of my duck flock who had come wandering over on the scrounge for some grain - and the cockerel took a fancy to him! Obviously my duck (not being gay and not keen on the cockerel's colours or something) - gathered himself up and took - with a cockerel hanging on to his tail feathers - he managed to get him up off the ground and travelled about 2 feet before the cockerel let go and fell to the floor.
The poor cockerel has now given up and gone to hide in the chicken coop - disgusted that the hens don't fancy him and everything is big enough to beat him up. The hens he moved with are all little bantem cross things and they are busy hiding amongst the other birds so he can't near them.
The poultry are all about 6 months old, and have been introduced and integrated into my existing flock of 12 hens. My hens have not had a cockerel around for over 12 months.
Well - the cockerel got up this morning full of the joys of winter and a new harem - and decided to try it on with one of my hens. Unfortunately my existing flock being that bit older than him - happen to be the same size or bigger than him.
I lost count of the amount of times he fell off and promptly got a good kicking and pecking from the hens. He looked so bewildered by his inability to bully these chickens he took himself off round the corner for a good sulk.
About 3 hours later, he found himself eyeball to eyeball with one of my duck flock who had come wandering over on the scrounge for some grain - and the cockerel took a fancy to him! Obviously my duck (not being gay and not keen on the cockerel's colours or something) - gathered himself up and took - with a cockerel hanging on to his tail feathers - he managed to get him up off the ground and travelled about 2 feet before the cockerel let go and fell to the floor.
The poor cockerel has now given up and gone to hide in the chicken coop - disgusted that the hens don't fancy him and everything is big enough to beat him up. The hens he moved with are all little bantem cross things and they are busy hiding amongst the other birds so he can't near them.
