Peter, the Orpington rooster, flew at our toddler while he was throwing scratch to the hens. I am always so careful to keep the rooster away from our 19 month old son, John, but this time, even though I was standing right next to our son and the rooster was 20 feet away, my estimated "safe" distance was NOT safe! Every sign of aggression, since the rooster was very young, I have scooped him up and carried hm around. He was relatively tame but I never fully trusted him because he's a rooster. Our son has a long scratch starting just below his eye and all the way down his cheek. He also has a puncture next to his mouth. The doctor said he will be fine. No stitches needed and it shouldn't even leave a scar. Thank goodness.
I briefly chased Peter but, of course, attending to my son was my priority rather than killing the rooster. Peter acted like he knew he screwed up. He ran and squawked all the back into his coop and hid there. I didn't even hear him crow the rest of the day. One of his layers just started acting broody (I didn't know that until later that day) so that may be why Peter lost his head.
Speaking of losing his head, my husband spent the remainder of the day plotting Peter's demise (I called him at work to tell him what happened). I was angry enough to do the job myself, however, while driving back from the doctor's office, my anger seemed to dissolve away. It could have been worse. Much worse. A more aggressive rooster could have injured John's eye. In fact, my husband knows a lady who lost her eye to a rooster attack hen she was a toddler. But that is not the case here. A lightening quick strike hurt our son but he will recover just fine.
It is hard to stay mad at animal for simply being an animal. A rooster, like a bull or a stallion, should never be trusted because they ARE unpredictable and potentially dangerous when they believe their "family" is in danger. While mulling this over, I remembered that one of the vet techs that works for our large animal vet was very taken with Peter. I called her up and Peter was given a stay of execution. She came by yesterday and picked him up along with two of his hens (we have more eggs than we need so we only kept four layers for our family).
As for us, we will not have another rooster on our place until our boy is much, much older. It's the height of a toddler that makes them so very vulnerable.
Peter survived a hawk attack and now he has escaped the axe. THAT is one lucky rooster.
I briefly chased Peter but, of course, attending to my son was my priority rather than killing the rooster. Peter acted like he knew he screwed up. He ran and squawked all the back into his coop and hid there. I didn't even hear him crow the rest of the day. One of his layers just started acting broody (I didn't know that until later that day) so that may be why Peter lost his head.
Speaking of losing his head, my husband spent the remainder of the day plotting Peter's demise (I called him at work to tell him what happened). I was angry enough to do the job myself, however, while driving back from the doctor's office, my anger seemed to dissolve away. It could have been worse. Much worse. A more aggressive rooster could have injured John's eye. In fact, my husband knows a lady who lost her eye to a rooster attack hen she was a toddler. But that is not the case here. A lightening quick strike hurt our son but he will recover just fine.
It is hard to stay mad at animal for simply being an animal. A rooster, like a bull or a stallion, should never be trusted because they ARE unpredictable and potentially dangerous when they believe their "family" is in danger. While mulling this over, I remembered that one of the vet techs that works for our large animal vet was very taken with Peter. I called her up and Peter was given a stay of execution. She came by yesterday and picked him up along with two of his hens (we have more eggs than we need so we only kept four layers for our family).
As for us, we will not have another rooster on our place until our boy is much, much older. It's the height of a toddler that makes them so very vulnerable.
Peter survived a hawk attack and now he has escaped the axe. THAT is one lucky rooster.
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Either lock him up 100% of the time or cull him.
