That's pretty cool, maggie:) I have Barred Rocks (similar to Doms in colour and ancestry). My roo has only six hens to look after and he is somewhat protective of them, but not on that scale. I've often wondered if it was because he is a clutchmate to two of the hens, making them essentially his sisters. The other hens are a mix - one Silkie, another "brown girl", and an Americana cross. The last one is his daughter - a Barred/Silkie cross and she is so cute!

What do you know about inbreeding, etc. within a small flock like this? We actually had 4 chicks hatched by the Silkie and one Barred hen last spring, but three were roos so I gave them away. They were all Silkie/Barred cross so obviously came from the Silkie hen. The barred hen just seemed to want to brood so she shared the job!

I've never seen the roo mate with either of his "sisters" or the Americana cross (which came with these three as day olds). In fact the only one I've ever seen him chase and "grab" is the poor little Silkie! I'm wondering if they have some kind of insticnt that helps prevent inbreeding?

I'm planning to get a few more new hens in spring. The brooding was fun, but I'm not sure I'll let the poor Silkie go through that again. She had 14 eggs under her at one point and I had to mark some and dispose of the rest. Every day I had to remove the new unmarked eggs from under her! If I let one brood this spring, I'll isolate her in a brooding pen, I think.

Roosters have their "favourites", Balsam, and it sounds like the poor little Silkie is his. I doubt very much that there is any inhibition among chickens about inbreeding. My old roo bred his clutchmates, daughters and their daughters, the randy old fellow. I saw a marked improvement over the three generations as a result of this.

As far as the consequences of inbreeding, I don't think you need to worry about health of the offspring because you already have a number of breeds. It generally takes a lot of inbreeding over a long time to cause problems.

I've been doing a fair bit of inbreeding with my mutt meat rabbits and they just keep getting better and better. Where the genes are good they can be enhanced by judicious inbreeding. But you have to be willing to cull ruthlessly any substandard young ones. Not a problem in this case, since we are raising them for meat anyway.

That's fascinating! I learn so much from watching the interactions of hens and roos. We have a bantam rooster, Louis XIV, and he has two bantam hens to keep track of. The one is the tiniest thing--when we had our (regular sized) cockerels, one of them tried to mate her. She shrieked and ran to Louis who stood right up to the rude dude. He's the only rooster I've seen be so brave--and he's so tiny! Our main rooster, just renamed Zeus, just walks around as if he's got a lot of responsibility, always looking every which way to keep track of the girls He takes good care of his hens--his head-hen and clutchmate, just renamed Hera, Breaker of Eggs, he mates occasionally but our other males and the females LEAVE HER ALONE. In fact, she's more assertive than the head roo. I find the protectivenss of the roosters very touching.
I hope others will share their observations!

I used to have two roosters and three hens. It was by accident, and for the most part the roosters were kept penned separately from the hens, but they still watched out for them.

One day I was working in my garden and the roosters were making a terrific noise. I finally walked around the garage so I could see their yard, and they were standing at the gate just crowing and crowing. When I looked past them, I saw smoke coming out of the coop door! The heat lamp had gotten knocked down into the wood shavings and was smouldering away.

I rushed in, unplugged the lamp and got it off the wood, then dumped their waterer on it to put out the embers.

If those roosters hadn't put up such a fuss I wouldn't have noticed until it was too late. They may be birdbrains, but they do have some sense!

Johanna

Your lucky to have a good roo.

My RiRed was too agressive with people, and the Dominque I have now is a .... well...a chicken. I've had about 4 hens killed by my parents pups this year. Maybe it was because the Dominque roo was too timid, and the young RiRed was WAY TOO young at the time. The RIRed is just becoming agressive, so there is hope for him, but the Dominque still hasn't "gotten it together" yet.

My flock seems to have broken up into little groups, the two young RIReds, then three dark Dominque hens, then two "smudgy" Dominque hens and the roo.

I have to say that I'm utterly in love with the mellower personality of the Dominques. I've even thought of crossing them with the RIReds to calm the reds down.

Maybe not.

Kitty

Our Henry is a good flock rooster, but he attacked me today. I was leaning over saying good-night to my geese through their pop-hole when he hit the back of my thigh hard. Fortunately he does not have very sharp spurs yet.

I was not impressed. This is the third time in about the past two weeks and by far the most aggressive move he has made. I couldn't catch him today, but tomorrow I am hoping to catch him with the landing net and carry him around and humiliate him in front of his girls.

I'm not afraid of him, but I am not willing to put up with this on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, he is great with the girls and I don't especially want to cull him.

That is a problem, isn't it? I have roosters that keep testing me, but they are so good with their flock that it seems a shame to cull them. Still, I have grandkids that come to visit and they could so lots of damage to a little kid (without a net!). I have two that I am trying to control, but they aren't going to get too many more chances.

Once they get those spurs, they are a real problem.

Ha! Today I carried a landing net with me and when Henry saw it he rounded up his girls and ran like the dickens, squawking and cussing like an idiot. Little coward!

No children here to be at risk, but when we take our cat, Marilla, out with her leash and harness (our road is too busy to let her "free-range") we have to be careful that Henry keeps his distance. He doesn't trust Marilla around his girls and I don't trust him around my moggie.

If he gets too outrageous, I'll tolerate him long enough to get some chicks and then make coq au vin. But I'm hoping he will back off and settle down. He's still young and fiesty right now, but our last roo settled down nicely once he was into his second year.

Is that right that roosters settle down in their second year? We won't have any grandkids here till late spring/summer and I would like to give these bad boys a chance to lighten up.

Not having hens myself, I may be wrong, but I seem to remember reading about similar concerns in the past, which Velvet Sparrow addressed in her member page/site. It might be worth while checking to see what she had to say about taming roosters, even though I don't think she has posted for a while....

Velvet Sparrow is always an excellent person to consult!

Roberta, our roo Napoleon settled down during his second year. I don't know how typical it is for roosters. It seemed to me that as he grew more experienced, he was better able to tell when there was a real threat to his girls and when it was just someone doing something unusual. He didn't like strangers, he didn't like bare legs, he didn't like raincoats. But he respected brooms so any visitors were handed one before they came into his yard.

That being said, I never fully trust any rooster. They are unpredicatable. And a small child is an easy target. If you have a rooster, take care when your grandchildren visit.

I figure Henry will either get better or get worse. In either case, I will know what to do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Velvet's Website

Ditto Maggie. In in his first year or so our rooster charge me a couple of times. He hasn't since. Now he's nearly 2. I always keep an eye on him. When I first let them out in the morning and he's especially active, I always have a garden tool in hand. When the chickens are following me across the yard I will walk facing him--I don't trust him though he hasn't touched me for several months. When grandkids visit, the roosters are in the pen. You can't be too careful. Sometimes I think it would be easier not to have roosters but they are beautiful and they are part of the natural order (however "natural" their lives are). And this rooster is great with his girls.
AS far as agression, our head hen is much more agressive than the rooster. This morning one of the pullets was in the egg laying place (of course the nesting boxes are ignored) in the corner and Hera just kept pecking at the pullet's neck. The pullet almost looked like she was in the submissive position but didn't leave the spot until the egg was layed.