He is of mixed origins. I got the eggs from a neighbor. The hen (can't remember the breed) has feathers on her legs and is a real sweetheart, that being a dominate trait he has a few feathers on his legs - just enough to be ugly. I'll have to check to see what the rooster possibilities were at the time. One possibility that I know could have been a Rhode Island Red. (I gave away the Rhode Island Red out of the same hatch, gave away the wrong bird - I see him occasionally and he's a good rooster.) Our daughter is home this weenend from college, if she has her digital camera with her I'll take some pictures of him. He eats out of our hands - all summer when I'd find a worm or grasshopper I'd yell bug and he'd come running to eat it out of my hand. At this point he is not the least bit aggressive to anyone or anything except the little girls. When he is finished with his business the poor things don't have a feather left on their necks and he claws out the feathers on their backends and as soon as he is finished with one he goes to another and then another. I haven't had the courage to leave him in there long enough to see if he ever plays out. Our game rooster is such a gentleman when it comes to his hens I suppose I expect all roosters to act the same way. I'm off to look at your page. Thanks

I lost the first version of this, so apologies if it posts twice: Help! I'm stumped by this one: Has anyone ever had a rooster who won't mate? We got a flock of 25 hens and two roosters last September. Due to mis-sexing we ended up with five roosters. It was clearly too many once they reached maturity, so we culled three. The two remaining Aruacana boys unfortunately became quite a team; rather than fighting each other, they ganged up on the hens. They were both on the hens constantly, usually one right after the other. So we culled the more aggressive one, Falcon. (Our kids named all our roosters.) That left "Banana." Since his sidekick's demise, Banana does all the things a rooster does except, um, the most important. He crows, he guards the hens, he looks vigilant. But we have seen NO signs of any mating going on since Falcon departed a month ago. Two of our hens have gone broody and we were hoping to hatch another flock. But I hate the idea of dealing with either sitting hens or an incubator for three weeks only to find we have a lot of unfertilized eggs. We joke that Banana fears meeting Falcon's fate, or that he was just posturing to impress Falcon, but honestly -- has anyone ever heard of this happening before? Maybe he's just a lot, er, quieter and more subtle than before when he had competition? Advice is appreciated, Meredith

Velvet, Thanks...the most confusing thing about it is that I opened the coop and let them out when I first noticed the bloody head.....yet...the injured chick DOES NOT RUN AWAY....not only that but it seems to seek out the 2 black showgirls and invite more fights. What gives? The chickens are not crowded...and they often free range during the day....however the chicks don't seem to stray far at all from the coop..and the injured one DOES NOT take advantage of the opportunity to ESCAPE. Instead, it holds its ground and fights back. The problem is that is it outnumbered....two to one. One of the other chicks does not fight and simply watches. We have a rooster in the coop as well....I thought roosters were supposed to break up hen fights? Of course, these chicks are not necessarily hens (we don't know yet). I called our local feed store and they don't have anything. However, Stromberg's chickens and McMurray Hatchery sell a spray called "Hot Pick" to stop pecking on an injury. They also sell some kind of blinders so the chicks can't see each other (they call these peepers or something like this). They also sell beak "clip" thingies that stop the birds from fully closing their mouth. Also, I've been told I can clip the beaks with dog clippers (shudder!) but I am scared of experimenting with this last option. Should I be? ARGH! What to do!

Use the word "free", it is the most powerful in the English language."Free Chickens and rooster you pick up" (ad) or you can call "animal control" ( they used to be called the dog pound). They are professionals at catching and removing unwanted animals .