Rooster Fights
Understand them
I have had 3 roosters co-exist for almost 3 years, with less than ideal females. With my head boy Bartholomew keeping the order and making sure the girls where happy. Unfortanly in the start of spring I learned it the hard way that its rare for one rooster to stay in charge his whole life time.
Understanding their fights makes it alot less scary and it also learn you as owner if you should step in or not.
An alpha rooster must show his dominance against the other roosters to maintain his place in the pecking order as the provider of the flock. He will spend over 70% of his time providing and looking out for his flock.
In the wild, the red jungle chickens usally have a flock of a dominant rooster that cares for about a dozen of hens, but nearby still a part of the flock there will be a group of younger cockerels and roosters. They will get along and live in peace, but these younger males will be observing, looking for their chance to become top of the flock
No fights are the same among roosters. Fights among the hens are short and decisive, with just some pecking. For the roosters there alot more behavior and convinsing that goes into a fight.
It crucial to let roosters fight for their pecking order. They keep their balance with having a alpha rooster and beta rooster (or roosters). The fights mostly only get serious and possibly deadly if the Alpha rooster decides that he will not put up with beta roosters.
Fights between roosters can be very sudden, like someone just turned on a switch!
The rooster that starting the challange will often flap his wing, in a heavy motion and he can also crow. It is a way to say "I am big and dangerous".
The one being challanged will be quick, running and they will explode into a pile of feathers, beaks and claws. Your first reaction will be to seperate them. Most likley they will start it up again soon as you leave. It is much better to let them settle the pecking order while you are around.
If the fights ends quickly you will have a very obvious looser and winner. This fight is most likley to settle the pecking order, the looser will run away. The winner may chase the looser for a short while to show his dominance. He should not countine to pick a fight.
What determines if you should step in is HOW they fight. What type of fighting thats OK and what type of fighting that will lead to the death.
A normal fight should only last about 15-20 minutes. If one of the roosters is looking that he about loose, the behavior of the stronger rooster will determin if they will be avabile to live togheter in the future.
If the stronger rooster countine to chase or harm the rooster, is the most obvious sign that that their coop is not big for the both of them.
If both are just continues to fight and they are starting to look tierd it could be a good idea to seperate them.
If you need to seperate them, how should you do this?
With small bantham roosters, you could just pick one up, but with bigger ones you could get really hurt. They still may be small but they pack a punch!
One tactic you could use is to splash some water on them. You get a chance to pick them up. They can still bite you but it will most likley stop when they get out of the "zone".
The blood
It wil be alot of blood on both of them. Most of it will be around the face. Make sure you clean these wounds. Saline and some antibacterial spray to make sure no infection arise.
They will have alot of missing feathers but they can also have missing spurs. The spurs have some major blod vessels and will there for bleed alot. You can put some blood stopper on this to stop the bleeding.
Eye wounds that looks like it have hit the eye deeper should be taken to the vet. Eye wounds can easily make any animal blind or cause a serious infection that will lead to blindness.
The rooosters will be exhausted. Keep them seperated so that they can start to calm down and recover. Offer them water and food.
Change in leadership: my own experience
I have had 3 silkie roosters for my whole chicken career. Of course I did not intend this, like many of us. I actully did not even intend to have one rooster, but changed my mind in the last minute and when my amazing Bartholomew arrived, my heart opend up to roosters.
My group have had an amazing dynamic for the longest time, despite it more than ideal rooster for the amount of girls. This was all due to Barts leadership. His leadership was built on one thing: for the good fo the flock. He loves the girls and he made sure the other two boys behaved.
Easter 2024 a respitory infection hit my flock. Unfortanly it hit Bartholomew first. I took him in seperated him for a day to keep it from spreading, when I put him back my younger rooster Grigori saw that the other two was weak (at this time my second rooster Pete had also gotten sick). He saw his chance to get what he always wanted: to be in charge.
Before this, I had never seen Grigori fight ONCE. He had always avoided conflict and never even tried to challange the other two. This time, he showed that he ment business: this was now his flock.
I did keep him seperated until I felt that the other two was well enough from their infection to stand up to him. I knew that they did had to settle this, I could not avoid it.
It took a while but the other did surrend to him and now he is in charge. He is the youngest rooster and still have alot to learn about leadership but I have seen progress in his behavior since then. He does kinda harras the other roosters, but not to the point that I do worry about it. I guess that he is still unsure about his dominance, afraid that one of the other 2 will take back the throne. I do kind of have the feeling that he will calm down as fall comes.
I do feel kinda sad that Bartholomew could not stay in charge, cause he was the perfect leader. I could never part from my boys so my other choise would be to split them up in diffrent flocks. As long as they get along I am happy.
Even tho I have less than ideal females for my boys they have never over mated the girls. They frustration with each other have never gone out over the girls. My motto when Grigori joined the flock that "is not a problem until it is a problem" he got a chance to prove his place in the flock, rather to cull him or sell him.
With this experience I could see what my researched talked about. I could see a huge diffrence between a real pecking order fight and a squabble.