Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[Fire Ant Farm]

X2. And I've raised quite a lot of NN over the years, it was always an exception for tears, they were always pullets except for one older hen in a flock with too many males which were beating up an actively breeding rooster.

I don't even separate cockerel from pullet broodmates. They all grow up together. However if there's a very bad ratio of roosters to pullets, the boys do get culled out earlier to reduce the male ratio but never separated...

Also the skin does get much thicker as they mature.

One of the best and most amazing things about chickens is that they heal incredibly quickly. The boys will take a while to smooth out their moves but in all honesty you may still witness the girls getting roughed up from time to time. A lot of my girls literally run to my arms when the boys are getting too amorous with them, and I still sometime have to play field medic...but it does get better over time.

This helps. Part of my procrastination was actually probably subconsciously wanting to see if it would be ok not to have to separate them yet. But in this case, I think it'll be good to give the girls a break for a little bit. I'm not expecting Barry White moves from all the boys, but I really don't want to have to patch the girls up daily either.

- Ant Farm

 

[Kev]

One of the best and most amazing things about chickens is that they heal incredibly quickly.

very true.... even without any help. I've come home after a week away and

at a girl with torn skin.. but it was already half healed. No infection or anything.. no scar on the neck after a while too.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

very true.... even without any help. I've come home after a week away and

at a girl with torn skin.. but it was already half healed. No infection or anything.. no scar on the neck after a while too.

I should add that it's not just this event - all the girls have scratches and healing cuts over the heads and necks, so this has been going on a while. This was just a very impressively bleeding wound, and together with watching a pretty aggressive and rapid succession of pursuits of the girls, made me think that they really needed some separation time STAT...

- Ant Farm

 

[Kev]

This helps. Part of my procrastination was actually probably subconsciously wanting to see if it would be ok not to have to separate them yet. But in this case, I think it'll be good to give the girls a break for a little bit. I'm not expecting Barry White moves from all the boys, but I really don't want to have to patch the girls up daily either.

- Ant Farm

Nothing wrong at all with separating the sexes... I have limited room(due to chicken math, sigh..) so out of necessity they have to be together and they are allright aside from the occasional annoyance with a boy 'trying to figure the girl thing out'. We're letting you know it is not an inevitable thing.. but does happen sometimes unfortunately.

It is also true that some boys are worse about it or unusually clumsy or persistent to the point of hurting the girls. Fortunately, they also usually get much better about it and not hurt the girls anymore.

 

[Kev]

I should add that it's not just this event - all the girls have scratches and healing cuts over the heads and necks, so this has been going on a while. This was just a very impressively bleeding wound, and together with watching a pretty aggressive and rapid succession of pursuits of the girls, made me think that they really needed some separation time STAT...

- Ant Farm

Hmm that is a little different. Was it all the boys or certain ones?

 

[Kev]

This is REALLY interesting, because my first generation NN with the partridge coloring and all of her offspring are also more aloof too, whereas most of the other birds are VERY friendly and even downright affectionate. Strange coincidence.....

Haha.. color has nothing to do with it... temperament is heritable though.

 

[Kev]

Did you get a decent color selection? From what I've seen of Ideal NNs, they seem to be mostly red/buff. Just curious because I just ordered a few from there today, due in March. And simultaneously lost my last beauuutiful (silver laced) NN hen today to the cold weather

(I assume.. found her deceased in the coop today, when she was perfectly fine last night).

where did the silver lace come from? sorry on losing her.

People have commented on cackle having a little more color variety in their NN stock.. can't confirm this myself though.

red/buff is very common from hatcheries in general. Black with red/brown showing on them is second most common. However it seems red is starting to become more common- for many years, buff was the dominant color..

if you are able to breed and hatch your own chicks, maybe have some fun crossing your NN with other breeds with different colors?

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Hmm that is a little different. Was it all the boys or certain ones?

Both Snape and Tank. (Not Apoc, lowest on boy pecking order.) It was like suddenly there was an urgency to them. Tank started it (he's a randy fellow anyway), then Snape scolded Tank for trying, then Snape started doing it which has not been common for him yet that I've observed (could have missed it, though) - maybe Snape was being territorial? He does seem to like Trinity a lot. But I should add that I just happened to be sitting there mellowing out watching them - I don't always do that around bed time, so who knows what I've missed that has healed. I didn't get the impression that either were doing anything but clumsily trying to get hold of the girls for some action - it wasn't an attack on the girls, and the girls got away and then were not immediately pursued (e.g., boys got the message - neither tried again with the same pullet). Maybe they were just too heavy handed about it.

- Ant Farm

 

[Kev]

Puppy - buff pullet, but with more black in her feathers:

pretty birdies. I have a girl exactly the same as Puppy.. red with lots of black on wings. That's strange as I haven't seen this pattern just a decade ago. I'm also seeing darker colors on the hatchery chicks I picked up from feed store.... guessing there's a shift in the predominant color in the breeder flocks.

 

[Kev]

Both Snape and Tank. (Not Apoc, lowest on boy pecking order.) It was like suddenly there was an urgency to them. Tank started it (he's a randy fellow anyway), then Snape scolded Tank for trying, then Snape started doing it which has not been common for him yet that I've observed (could have missed it, though) - maybe Snape was being territorial? He does seem to like Trinity a lot. But I should add that I just happened to be sitting there mellowing out watching them - I don't always do that around bed time, so who knows what I've missed that has healed. I didn't get the impression that either were doing anything but clumsily trying to get hold of the girls for some action - it wasn't an attack on the girls, and the girls got away and then were not immediately pursued (e.g., boys got the message - neither tried again with the same pullet). Maybe they were just too heavy handed about it.

- Ant Farm

Yeah a lot of problems are caused by a boy interrupting another trying to mate with a girl. Just two roosters like this cause a lot more problems than say, 6 roosters that don't actively try to interrupt a mating.

Snape *might* turn out to be one of those roosters with low tolerance for other roosters in general. Some roosters just cannot tolerate any other rooster to the point of it it not being safe to have him confined with another rooster (coop/run), others are variably tolerant(can tolerate another being around, but cannot stand to see any rooster mounting a hen, etc), yet others are just fine with other roosters.

Anyways that's saying a lot without having seen the birds. maybe they will all mellow out once their hormones arent raging anymore.. but I suspect with the amount of scratches on your girls, there's at least one "active interrupter" in your flock. The girls get hurt the most when there's two boys wrestling right on top of her.