rooster question

[SBLAKE11]

i had a barred rock rooster given to me today. so i went to catch it up and bring it home and i looked at his spurs and seriously, im not lying, his spurs are longer than my pointer finger. they are a good 2 - 3 inches long. i said that the rooster must be old and the lady said that he is only 1 1/2 year old. i argued with her and she stuck to her guns. well hubby got home and looked at him and said he has never seen any chicken of any breed with spurs that long. can someone tell me is it unusual for a rooster to have that long of spurs to be that young.

[ra66]

I am by no means an expert. But I had a cross bred rooster (Wyandot +RIR) and at 1.5yr his spurs were 2 -2.5 inches in length. Now my neighbor had fighting chickens (he did not fight them, they just ran loose - he kept them because they are hardy & tough) His older roosters had long spurs, but his 1 yr olds did not.
R

[mikarod]

Yes, it's perfectly normal for them to have 2-2.5" spurs at that age. I had one that was 2 years old that had 4" spurs...I had to file them down...he had issues sitting down.

It seems as though the Barred Rocks and the Barred Rock crosses grow their spurs the fastest and the longest. I have an 11 yr. old Light Brahma that only has 2" spurs so go figure???

[tlrohr]

I was getting ready to say that some of my Roosters have long spurs --- still trying to figure out how many Roosters I have and how many Hens --- the other day I realized 1 hen is a rooster. Okay back to the subject --- those spurrs are long and I would really hate to feel one up close. Quite a few of my Roosters must have 1.5 - 2+" spurrs.

By the way, is it 1 Rooster to every 5 Hens? If my hens keep turning into Roosters I will have to get more hens.

[mikarod]

I male can cover 10 females or more.

If you have more than one male with 10 females...you're going to have some barebacked hens!!! LOL

[SBLAKE11]

thanks alot, i was wondering.

[tlrohr]

I imagine that I will be able to tell exactly what I have very soon --- as I stated --- my hens have been turning into Roosters. :) Meaning: I bought them as hens and a couple now crow --- instead of laying eggs --- guessw the guy was not so good at the sexing as he thought.

[BUDDYSGIRL]

I have a pet chicken named Mable, she doesn't like being raped and will run to me from the roosters( I have 2). Well they cornored her last week in the chic house and plucked her bald, really bald. She wouldn't come out of the chic house for 2 days cause it was cold. So she is now in a cage in the tack room. I have 28 hens and each rooster has his flock. And I'm still getting eggs every day up to 16 some days.

I ordered just hens and bought the rooster separate. In my hen order a rooster got mixed in so I ended up with 2. One is probably gonna have to go.

[hillbillyin]

Actually, you only need one rooster for every 20 hens. I learned this the hard way when I first got into chickens. I thought every hen had her own rooster! I had three hens, and three roosters---leghorn, silky, and buff orpington---a pair of each! I didn't know that any rooster can fertilize any breed of hen, so we had some funny looking cross-bred chicks! Also, the roosters would "compete" several times every day by crowing back and forth----so much for only crowing at sunrise! It was pretty entertaining, though! I don't have chickens currently, but can't wait to get some next spring! Good luck with all your roosters.

[mikarod]

hillbillyin...sorry. Hate to start a tussle, but according to Dr. Anthony, to get all females bred and not cause undo stress, a male must be kept with approximately 10 females. In cases where fertility is more important than comfort, you may downsize the females to 8.