Misadventures in Cock Blocking

When Jen was giving me the run-down on how to look after the laying hens for the month of May, one of the topics covered was keeping a lookout for injured birds. She explained that as they had bred their own birds over the winter, there were still a lot of young roosters in the bunch that hadn’t been culled yet. (When laying hens are bought from a hatchery, you usually receive only females. The ratio of roosters to hens should be quite low to keep egg production at its best and two or three roosters can keep a medium size group happy for several years. Unfortunately, this usually means that male chicks are dispatched at the hatchery shortly after they hatch from the egg.) The higher number of males in the group meant that there could be some increased fighting and hostility, with younger roosters getting beat up by the older boys. She advised that I keep a look out for fresh wounds on the feet or the combs of the birds, and that if I see any fighting, to separate the birds if I could. Sounded pretty straight forward.

During my first week of looking after the birds, I did observe some of the birds had had their tail feathers pulled out or bald scabby patches on their lower backs. I checked with Jen on this, she said to continue to keep an eye out but not to worry unless I was seeing fresh wounds. In my first two weeks, there seemed to be two kinds of fighting going on amongst the birds: 1) where one cock charges another and the other bird either retreats or defends his spot or 2) one rooster pins another bird while it’s on the ground and pulls at its comb with its beak. Interactions of the first kind were often over before I could do anything about them and seemed harmless, usually the younger rooster just ran away, avoiding injury. Interactions of the second kind seemed to last longer and occur more frequently, with the older rooster tugging roughly on the comb of the bird on the bottom and the bottom bird making a few noises but no real effort to defend itself. These interactions I would often break up by yelling and swiping my foot toward the large rooster so that he would jump off and leave the poor guy alone.

Yesterday, we had a farm meeting where items of planning, scheduling and logistics were discussed.  Afterwards, Jen opened the floor to questions and comments from the apprentices. So I piped up,

“I’ve been breaking up the roosters when the older ones get on top and start pulling on the younger roosters comb. Is that okay or am I messing with the hierarchical pecking order of the group or something?”

Jen and Mike (Jen’s father and owner of the farm) immediately burst into laughter.

“You’re not messing with any pecking order, but you are breaking up the honeymoon!” Mike responded, still laughing.

Jen, also still chuckling, added “Yep, chicken sex is not pretty.”

I was pretty embarrassed but couldn’t help laughing too. Especially when Derek added, “Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘cock-blocking’!”

Sorry cocks, my bad :s