Training Roosters deserves its own thread

[dominiquer60]

Jen, Rooster training is easy, like training any other mammal, you make what you want them to do the easy thing for them to choose to do. I start with a cockerel if possible, they are a little less set in there ways than a cock bird. Males are better at this than females, simply because they don’t have to lay an egg in the middle of the market. Although this can be fun for customers it is often hard to get away from the line of people that want to give you their money, in order to follow Henny Penny to the nest of the day.

I use a cockerel that is not a flighty lunatic, it doesn’t have to be kid broke(any one can touch/pickup) to death to work but that helps. I prefer to handle them as much as possible before exposing them to the crowds of admirers, but is is amazing what success you can have with a last minute wonder. I tie a 5 foot piece of industrial rug yarn that I use for braiding around a foot, I NEVER tie it to another object. When the bird leaves his perch, don’t chase the bird aim for a toe on the end of the string. It is so much easier this way, and you won’t have the poor bird reaching the end of a tied string and jerk to the ground suddenly, customers don’t want to see that.

The perch, is the real key to the training. I use a 4 foot high sandwich board sign that my father made for me. It is ideal because it gives the bird a safe place to roost for the 4 hour long market. From this perch he can see everything around him, people, dogs and such, he feels like a king with this birds eye view. At some point, hopefully when there are a good number of people around, he will test the perch and fly/hop off. Once on the ground of a busy market suddenly everyone is very tall and dangerous to the little guy. Once caught the perch becomes a safe haven from the bottom of peoples feet and they generally decide that the sign is a great place to hang out for 4 hours. Especially when customers feed you baked goods, cider, coffee, greens that dropped on the ground and all sorts of goodies. It helps to be right there to enforce the fact that freedom is not fun and the sign is a great place to have a snack. I try to recruit another vendors kid for this job, after the first 30-60 minutes most of the training is done. I keep the string on them for 3-4 weeks and then they are good to go. Bantams work well, but I did have a standard sized Dominique that won the hearts of my customers with his deafening crow.

I love sharing my birds with the public, they are a great tool for teaching folks about agriculture and animal behavior (something many crazed parents should know how to handle but don’t). People often told me that it was so nice of me to bring the farm to the market and share a little of the good life with them.

The photo below shows a helper feeding Escher on his first day on the job, he trained so easy, as expected because Wyandottes are known for being docile. The other is of My beloved Bob a his offspring Jr., he rode shotgun with no cage for 2 good years, a nasty SOB at home and an exceptional market bird on his sign.

[jen judkins]

Sounds pretty straight forward. Thanks, Erika.

Here are my roosters….Sam (polish) and Mabel (silkie…thought he was a she…guess I should rethink the name). Oh yeah…my niece, Vera…the chicken whisperer.

[dominiquer60]

They are handsome boys, and I can relate to the young chicken whisperer, that was me a while back. Those silkes are a hard breed to sex young. Did you know that they have black skin. A friend sent me a link about how black silkie chickens are a new health fad with the soup that you make from them. http://www.blogofherbs.com/herbs/the-ultimate-kidney-tonic-black-soup They are different looking, but I am not trying to imply that you ax Mabel, just sharing some interesting silkie news.

A fellow member of a certain Ag lobby organization called me lazy for giving up an opportunity he found me to farm a nice sandy 16 acres. I told him I don’t care how much the 4 surrounding developments would want my fresh produce, I am sure that they would not have anything to do with listening to my roosters all day long. If I can’t have roosters because of the neighbors, it is not worth my time, they add too much to my quality of life to farm without them.

[OldKat]

I love sharing my birds with the public, they are a great tool for teaching folks about agriculture and animal behavior (something many crazed parents should know how to handle but don’t). People often told me that it was so nice of me to bring the farm to the market and share a little of the good life with them.

This is a GREAT marketing concept, and sounds like a fun thing to do. Kudos to you for coming up with this. I’m going to keep this one in mind.

[jen judkins]

@dominiquer60 4880 wrote:

Did you know that they have black skin. A friend sent me a link about how black silkie chickens are a new health fad with the soup that you make from them. http://www.blogofherbs.com/herbs/the-ultimate-kidney-tonic-black-soup They are different looking, but I am not trying to imply that you ax Mabel, just sharing some interesting silkie news.

Ha! I shared that with my mom….she was horrified! The silkies are waaaay to cute to consider eating, at least at this point:eek:. Nice to know we have some designer food to sell, if the need comes.

I also agree with you wholeheartedly about the Rooster factor:).

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