hugyourchicken

As much as people think cockerels are aggressive and difficult; they serve a vital purpose in the free range chicken world. Yes they may wake you up early each morning but in the long run you will be thankful for the time your cockerel has saved you. Don’t be fooled chickens are routine animals in their minds and bodies. Thanks to cockerels that mostly are aggressive due to humans breeding them for cockfighting- they protect our hens from predators! Sometimes it’s nicer to have a more non- breed docile breed that still are very caring for their hens. The longer you have chickens the more you will pick up on his ‘warning calls’, these range from threats to on land predators or an alarm that a bird of prey is near. I am constantly surprised by how intuitive and alert my cockerel is. There will also be times when the whole flock starts panicking if a hen is missing and he will frantically search until she is found. Another part to a cockerel’s routine is fertilising the eggs; they will either flirt with the chickens by making a certain ‘chucking’ noise which normally is ‘look I’ve found a nice snail over here’, I like to think of it as him buying the chicken a drink in the bar. However most of the time your cockerel will ‘mount’ the chickens just as they come down from laying there egg; as there is only a 15 minute gap when the next yolk is forming inside her. Problems with cockerels is if they do not have enough chickens they can become more aggressive or even tire out the other chickens, the recommended ratio is one cockerel to ten chickens. If a cockerel becomes too aggressive get more hens, however, they do tend to sort out problems between the hens and chickens and will never join in with hen pecking.