Nasty roosters

And after I thought our Saturday was going just fine, at the end of the day something bad happened.  While my husband was closing up the chicken coop, he noticed one of our Rhode Island Red hens was still underneath the coop not moving and just standing on the far end.  Our first option was for me to crawl under the coop and get her. But I was worried I won’t fit and could get stuck while crawling.  And it would be really gross to do so as the chickens usually hang around underneath during the day.  And didn’t want to get my coat dirty.  Here’s how small the bottom opening of the coop looks like.

 We had to unscrew the left side of the bottom of the coop to get the chicken but luckily she walked outside on her own towards the front of the coop.  So unscrewing the side board was useless and now we have to put it back.  Unfortunately, she’s really in bad shape.  That explains why she isolated herself under the coop.  Her back has an open wound and both sides under the wings has been ripped open.  It looks like some of the roosters had roughly mounted her.  I have seen roosters mounting the same hen at the same time or right after the other.  She is very small hen to start with and the rooster’s claws must have ripped both her sides open.  

Here are the pictures of the poor hen.  We put hydrogen peroxide on her wound and flushed it with saline solution.  I don’t know if she will make it tomorrow morning.  I hope so.  Time will only tell.  She’s inside our house in the bathroom.  And I don’t like this to happen but what can I do?  I will check in tomorrow morning if there are other chickens in the same condition.

 

 

At first, I’ve told myself, maybe there was a predator that did this.  But no, the dogs have been indoors all day.  And at this time of the year, if any predators will attack, they will not leave anything alive as they are all hungry for food.

I’m again very angry with my roosters as I’m very attached to my hens.  They damaged the hen's back, wings and sometimes the neck, while breeding.  What is it about male animal species?  I’ve decided they are going to be my food in the spring.  With all these nasty things they’re doing, there is no question I won’t spare them.  Their days are counted.  I will have my revenge and maybe hold a big barbeque party.  Imagine, I think we now have 21 roosters out of the 49 chickens.  A few had a sex change.  We were sold about 18 hens last October and 5 of them turned out to be roosters.  The desired proportion is supposed to be 5 hens to 1 rooster.  We have to increase the hens or decrease the roosters.  Right now, we should only have maximum of 6 roosters for 28 hens.  But we have 21 roosters so the hens are really stressed out.  My next blog will be about which 6 roosters I will keep.

I’m still hoping to get some fertilized eggs from select few gentle roosters so I can hatch some chicks this spring.