A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens (52 page)

Don’t mess with me! (Norfolk Grey)

Not all cockerels are grumpy and some are delightful birds. We inherited three in our first flock and they gave no trouble. They were handsome chaps, much admired, and all got along (reasonably) well. Keeping several males isn’t usually advisable as they are likely to fight.

Cockerels can be handsome birds, whether small . . . (Booted Bantam) . . . or large (Buff Orpington)

Deciding Whether You Need a Cockerel

Are you sure you need a cockerel? Hens won’t lay any better because there’s a male around. His attentions may even cause them distress or injury, especially if there aren’t enough hens to keep him busy or if he singles one out as a favourite.

If you want chicks, fertile eggs are easily bought and you can hatch any breed you fancy.

It’s usually better to begin by keeping hens and think about adding a cockerel later.

In a free-range flock a cockerel will act as lookout for the hens and sort out squabbles. I’ve noticed that my hens seem more settled with a cockerel to look after them.

Come and see what I’ve got!

A cockerel will fertilize the eggs . . . (Brahma)

. . . which is sometimes stressful for the hens . . .

. . . although it’s usually over quickly.

‘Was that it?’

He will also fertilize the eggs (there is no obvious difference in appearance
or taste), allowing you to breed replacements. Bear in mind that at least half the chicks are likely to be . . . more cockerels.

Hatching Cockerels

This is often overlooked in the excitement of putting eggs to hatch but the proportion of males to females is usually quite high.

If you have an ‘auto-sexing’ breed, the males and females will have different coloured down. You can also cross two different coloured birds to produce chicks that can be sexed at a day old (e.g. a Rhode Island Red male crossed with a Light Sussex hen will give light males and darker females). If you don’t want cockerels, this will mean culling the chicks.

Otherwise it can be difficult to identify the cockerels until the chicks are well feathered – sometimes you have to wait until they start crowing!

This may give their owner a headache in more ways than one. If a single cockerel can cause unrest, half a dozen could result in a neighbourhood uprising. Even if this isn’t a problem, keeping them all is unlikely to be practical. Apart from fighting, they will harass the hens (who may stop laying in protest) and eat vast amounts of food.

We kept a young cockerel who threw his own father out of the flock when he reached maturity. Unfortunately for Junior, he was still young enough to become a very delicious chicken dinner – but his poor old dad never quite recovered from the humiliation.

This isn’t easy. Many people aren’t able or don’t want to keep one, while those who do have a cockerel aren’t usually in the market for more.

Pure-breeds (especially if they are rare) may have a better chance of finding a home than those of mixed parentage. It’s worth trying a few adverts on local notice boards or on poultry websites. Some (very few) rescue centres might take unwanted poultry.

Make sure your cockerels go to caring owners and be wary about offering them ‘free to a good home’. Illegal cock-fighting organizations apparently use tame cockerels to give confidence to young fighting birds. It would be better to cull the unwanted males than abandon them to such a fate.

Producing Table Birds