A Viewpoint on Handling Roosters: How to Deal with Aggression

I began reading this article, as I have many, in hopes of finding an answer to a problem I’ve encountered with too many of my cockerels, 6 to be exact. I am to the point of thinking I’ll never be able to keep a cockerel, much less dream of having a beautiful, mature rooster. I am not one for giving up on anything, and please don’t tell me I can’t do something, because I sure enough will prove you wrong...until it comes to cockerels, that is.

Out of my last batch of eggs that I incubated, 7 out of 8 were male. Yeah! Go figure! Anyway, I took this as a sign to do a little experiment. I mean, I have enough birds to experiment with, right? There’s no way I’d be keeping all 7 anyway, so if my project doesn’t work, no harm done, chicken soup it is.

They were all mixed birds and two of the males were given more attention from the get go, and naturally I bonded with them. They were my first and they were prettier.

When all 7 were running loose with the flock, even though none presented any ill will toward me, they were like a gang of thugs running loose on the streets and were wreaking havoc on my girls. So now, five are in the batchelor pen/soup holding pen and the two I like are still with the girls.

So far things are going good and I’m hoping beyond hope that I’ll be able to employ some of the suggestions in this article to help me correctly raise a decent boy, if not two.

Hallelujah, this information is what I’ve been waiting for and I didn’t want the article to end! Thank you, thank you!

I'm relatively new to chickens and brought home my first baby cockerel this spring. I have a few months before I'll need to deal with dominant behavior from my guy, but frankly I had not even considered that aggressiveness would be a concern (duh). This article gives me quite the leg up and I thought the explanations were very clear. Thank you so much for a comprehensive review of body language (chicken and human) and behaviors I can expect by the end of the summer. Hopefully I can manage to avoid major confrontations.

As you know I do not raise chickens, but I find a lot of what you've said here to be true as it applies to not just roosters but birds in general. I believe that a lot of birds are thought to be aggressive that are really just terrified. With a little patience sometimes that can be overcome. Great article Banty! Thanks for sharing.

I really enjoyed this article. Very practical, very in depth instruction. This will be useful to me as I attempt to find a full-time flock rooster. Thank you!

Really fun to read. You're a good writer.

I've set myself a personal goal to learn a new thing about raising and managing my flock every day. April 12, check .

Excellent read.
Fabulous article.

This is a good article. The author has obviously put a lot of effort into trying to find the best ways to manage male chickens. My approach has been entirely different but then I don't have the same number of chickens and I don't have the same keeping arrangements.
Any attempts to try and understand chickens and male chickens in particular I'm always going to be in favor of. I don't have to agree with the approach to recommend that this article is well worth reading and outlines someones experience rather than regurgitating some of the nonsense that can be found on the web.

Excellent info; I think a few more pictures would be better, but it's a very good read.

Very well thought out! There's a lot of good information here, presented in a clear, easy-to-follow manner. It's a good read for anyone contemplating a few cockerels in the flock or dealing with a feathered "problem child." The recommendation to read Temple Grandin's work is a good one, too. If you don't have time to work through the books, look for the speeches and video shorts on YouTube. They're pretty much all good!