Roosters Crowing

December 31, 2014 by IH Farm

This post was originally from October 2014, but never was published. Enjoy a story from warmer days, now that we are in the middle of winter…

About a week ago we picked up 5 new chickens. A local family had too many chickens for the size of its coop, and needed to get rid of a few. I was eager to pick them up as the chickens’ breeds are supposed to be great foragers, not to mention the birds are very pretty. Two were Appenzeller Spitzhauben roosters, one was a Fayoumi rooster, and two were Fayoumi hens.

Three of the chickens on their way to the homestead

It’s been interesting to have more roosters around! Let me take a moment to tell you our rooster history. In March when we acquired our first chicks, we bought 20 sexed chicks. They were supposed to be all hens, but sexing is not 100% accurate. Therefore, we expected to get a rooster in the bunch. We wanted a rooster because a rooster will protect the flock, and then we could hatch our own fertilized eggs. We were dissappointed as all the chicks ended up being hens!

All hens!

In June, after we knew we had all hens, we picked up a Dark Brahma hen and rooster duo. Ever since we dreamed of getting a homestead, we joked that our dog Noah wanted a pet rooster named Nugget, so we named this rooster Nugget. For the first week or so, the rooster crowed in the morning. It was nice to finally have a rooster crowing! After about a week, though, the crowing tapered off. I theorize he stopped crowing because he wasn’t at the top of the pecking order. Our prior hens were bigger than the rooster when he arrived, so they established dominance over him. Since June until now (October) we have never seen this rooster mount a hen, either.

Nugget and his hen

In July, we picked up another two dozen young hens. Well, we thought they were all hens until this week! The arrival of the three new roosters led to some new surprises, as you’ll see…

Fayoumi rooster and hen

When we brought home the three new roosters, they were crowing away. Did you know it’s a myth that roosters only crow at sunrise? Our roosters usually start crowing before sunrise, and they can crow anytime during the day. I will say that the most crowing occurs in the morning. Crowing is a way to establish dominance, and the new roosters were crowing so much to prove they were the “top roosters” in this new environment. Now we had more crowing than I could ever imagine! In fact, the crowing of the new roosters prompted one of our young “hens” from July to start crowing, too. I guess we have another rooster! Our rooster total is 5 now. Interestingly, Nugget hasn’t joined in to the crowing contest.

As the week has gone on, the crowing is still frequent, but the amount has lessened a bit from the rate it was at when the new roosters first came home. Over time it may decrease a bit more. We will see!