Rooster Reserve

MondayMon

7:00AM - 10:00PM

TuesdayTue

7:00AM - 10:00PM

WednesdayWed

7:00AM - 10:00PM

ThursdayThu

7:00AM - 10:00PM

FridayFri

7:00AM - 10:00PM

SaturdaySat

7:00AM - 10:00PM

SundaySun

7:00AM - 10:00PM

Onetangi, Waiheke 133-165 Onetangi Road

Parking Gravel Carpark

Accessibility Limited Access

Facilities At Sports Park

Playground Not Available

Public Barbeque At Sports Park

Rubbish Bins At Sports Park

Overview

Rooster Reserve is a place where you can take your family/guests/kids to feed roosters and ducks, plus a few other species of birds. It is our local free petting zoo. The birds will come right up to you when you feed them, so you can get plenty of photos with them. Just make sure to use bird safe food like grain, fruit and seeds. There are lots of different breeds of roosters and ducks. If you are lucky you might even see a goose and some bantams.

Do not feed them bread, as it swells in their stomach and can cause more health problems.

Dark Roots

But sadly its not all sunshine and roses, there has been a community war going on down at the rooster reserve. But like any war there are two sides and we are going to digest this.

Tourist Destination

Most locals and tourists just visit the Rooster park to enjoy it. But a select few volunteer to care for and feed these roosters, in the early days this was not as bad because not so many ducks were stealing the roosters food.

The Duck Takeover

The volunteers/community have had to implement advanced feeding techniques that only roosters have access too. This leaves the ducks fighting for dregs/leftovers of what people drop off. Ducks are not pets (typically) and don’t require feeding to survive. This is why advanced feeders were installed.

Rooster Facilities

Coops and water stations were also installed to keep the roosters in a dry environment with proper hydration. From our personal experience most roosters just hang in the trees once it gets dark, maybe some of the older or weaker ones use the coops.

Illegal Rooster Dumping

Sadly a lot of these roosters have been dumped by locals/breeders as it is illegal to have roosters on non farmland properties. So the only solution many think of is leaving them at the rooster reserve, believing it will give them a better life. Unfortunately many roosters don’t make it due to the pecking order, it is a tough life for a rooster, with many fights sometimes leading to death, starvation, dehydration, dogs and also vehicles.

The Waiheke community is trying to stop this, sadly it’ll mean our little rooster reserve will be no longer, just a duck reserve, roosters are already slowly disappearing over the years from being a full on rooster park now there’s a select few.

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