2 yr old rooster has gone psycho

[Ganjaroo]

I've raised this bird from a chick, and he has always been VERY protective of my two hens. He has saved them from numerous hawk attacks over the past two years, to the point where the hawks don't even come around anymore, nor do stray cats. .. or anyone else for that matter. lol. Anyway, he has always been sassy and has his aggressive moments, (of course), but has never full out attacked me until today.

I've read posts here before about taming a rooster, and have used the advice of holding him until he calms. This has always seemed to do the trick, and he even (quite often) has his loving moments of being snuggly, sitting on my lap and letting me pet him.

TODAY, he has taken to attacking me everytime I go in the yard or go near him. I had to use a blanket and throw it over him just to pick him up, and even after holding him until he calmed down, he went right back to it as soon as I released him! The last time, he bit my leg, and I'll tell you what, the "holding" him nonsense was OVER. I kicked at him, which only made him more aggressive and he came at me full force. ..neck feathers spiked out, and coming at me with his spurs like he was going to fight me to the death! I locked him in the coop after that episode, which he hates, but even after his Time Out, he went right back to it and came at me again.

Mama is NOT HAVING THIS. Honestly, I have always adored him (Until today, that is!!), and really do not want to get rid of him. My hens adore him as well. I'm hoping he snaps out of it but I just don't know..

Any suggestions on what to do with my seemingly possessed rooster?? Has anyone else experienced this drastic change in behavior after two years?

 

[Folly's place]

YES!!! This is not a drastic behavior change, this is an escalation of his behavior. He's another year older and wants to move up in the world. ONCE I was able to rehome a jerk like this, and he was okay in his new home. We had a serious chat before he left, and he spent two days in a big dog crate by himself, first. In general, what you have is what he will be, until you invite him in for dinner. Someone else will be delighted to have him for dinner if you can't do the deed yourself. So sorry, but it's part of chickenkeeping. Mary

 

[Ganjaroo]

YES!!! This is not a drastic behavior change, this is an escalation of his behavior. He's another year older and wants to move up in the world. ONCE I was able to rehome a jerk like this, and he was okay in his new home. We had a serious chat before he left, and he spent two days in a big dog crate by himself, first. In general, what you have is what he will be, until you invite him in for dinner. Someone else will be delighted to have him for dinner if you can't do the deed yourself. So sorry, but it's part of chickenkeeping. Mary

Thanks for the advice Mary, but all I can think is YIKES at the thought of my boy becoming a Sunday feast! I guess I was foolishly hoping that my sweet roo would return, but at the same time, I will certainly not have a demon to battle daily in my own home! Ugh.. this is so depressing.. not to mention physically painful. lol. I guess will wait a few days and see what happens..

 

[Folly's place]

He could seriously hurt a child, and even if you convince him not to attack you, he will go after any other human in the vicinity. Mary

 

[Ganjaroo]

He could seriously hurt a child, and even if you convince him not to attack you, he will go after any other human in the vicinity. Mary

I have no kids here, and mean as this may sound, I'm not concerned with him attacking other humans. lol. He's always been a great watch dog! However, I am concerned for my two hens. They seem to love him, he protects them, ..and the favored hen squawks her head off whenever he is out of her sight. I'm also worried she will go after my much more docile hen if I get rid of the roo. She has moments of picking on her as it is..

 

[chooks4life]

I've raised this bird from a chick, and he has always been VERY protective of my two hens. He has saved them from numerous hawk attacks over the past two years, to the point where the hawks don't even come around anymore, nor do stray cats. .. or anyone else for that matter. lol. Anyway, he has always been sassy and has his aggressive moments, (of course), but has never full out attacked me until today.

That was your official warning sign right there. Good roosters do not have 'aggressive moments', period. If he attacked other people before you, that's also a serious warning sign.

I've read posts here before about taming a rooster, and have used the advice of holding him until he calms. This has always seemed to do the trick, and he even (quite often) has his loving moments of being snuggly, sitting on my lap and letting me pet him.

Taming a rooster starts when he's a chick, it's not something you try to apply to a grown and already aggressive rooster. If he ever shows you any signs of aggression, that means in his mind it's a foregone conclusion that you are to be attacked, and it will happen sooner or later.

Some signs to watch out for include: if he's ever done that wing-dropped strutting-up approach to you, or done that body tilt where he stands parallel to you and tilts his shoulders, dipping the closest one to you, or does that fake 'tid-bitting' (minus actual food or the food call) where he picks up and drops a random item over and over again while staring straight at you the whole time.

Those are all serious though subtle warning signs, never acceptable. Most people don't realize what they mean though. Chickens have many warning body language signs and your rooster has probably been ignored while he demonstrated some of the milder ones, so now he's escalated to the full-on 'I'm going to kill you' threat behavior. He means it, 100%. It's not a bluff... It never is. Even a charge, terminated before arriving at the victim, is not a true bluff. It's indicative of his mental state and it's building up to a full attack.

For them to do any of these warning signs means they have already decided to attack you, they already view you as an inferior animal they can destroy.

If he is foolish enough to attack an animal so much larger than himself, that never offered him violence, he isn't going to respond to you kicking him with respect. At best he will merely start attacking you from behind or when your guard is down. Some people claim they have triumphed over their aggressive roosters using brooms or whatever to hit them, but nobody's given a follow-up status update on that subject despite people asking, so I can only assume it ultimately failed. Spending your life being terrorized by a pet or livestock animal is crazy.

There are truly good roosters being killed every day for want of a good home while people keep vicious cowardly brutes instead.

Many are cowardly/clever enough to wait until your back is turned or you're bending over. The one rooster that full on attacked me jumped up from the ground to my head, from almost completely out of my range of vision, over my shoulder to attack my face. He didn't need to use his wings to attain the necessary height. I'm not short either. I reflexively backhanded him out of the air before he hit my face, and as soon as he hit the ground he sprang straight back up again. The whole incident was over in about three seconds, it was so fast, but in that time he could have blinded me. He didn't get to because my reflexes kicked in fast enough but he was culled soon after. I have little kids around, no way I will keep a rooster who can cause them permanent damage or even kill them.

He'd never been abused or teased or anything usually blamed for their behavior. But bad roosters don't actually need any true provocation to attack. It's their mindset that makes them attack, not what we do, and for this reason, we can't stop them except by restriction to cages and similar methods.

TODAY, he has taken to attacking me everytime I go in the yard or go near him. I had to use a blanket and throw it over him just to pick him up, and even after holding him until he calmed down, he went right back to it as soon as I released him! The last time, he bit my leg, and I'll tell you what, the "holding" him nonsense was OVER. I kicked at him, which only made him more aggressive and he came at me full force. ..neck feathers spiked out, and coming at me with his spurs like he was going to fight me to the death! I locked him in the coop after that episode, which he hates, but even after his Time Out, he went right back to it and came at me again.

He's not worth breeding, you should cull him for everyone's sakes. This behavior is very strongly heritable and chances are he inherited it in the first place. Spur wounds rarely heal properly and can plague you for life, as well as being very disfiguring. Roosters kill toddlers fairly regularly, it's not one of those 'fluke' deaths, for sure.

If you breed him and sell off some of his offspring, this trait can show up without warning for generations to come, up to 7 generations from now even with conscious efforts to breed the trait out. It can persist indefinitely without conscious efforts to breed it out, which is far easier said than done as it's indicative of a very imbalanced mindset and simply preventing them from acting on it does not make the trait go away; if you hide the warning signs you'll never know which male of his family line is safe to turn your back on.

Caging them or otherwise preventing them from acting on it weakens the trait sometimes but that makes it all the more of a surprise when it surfaces. Many serious rooster attacks had no warning signs beforehand. Attacking people, hens, chicks, whatever are not normal behavioral traits of mentally healthy roosters; good roosters will never show any of them, abused or not, teased or not, hand-fed or not, handled or not.

Your hens deserve better. By breeding them with this vicious male you are ruining any domestic trustworthiness in their family lines as their offspring will be tainted invisibly with his abnormal violent proclivities. By keeping him, even if you don't breed him, you're wasting the hens' lives and letting their family lines die out to appease a violent dictator; we're all stewards of genetics in animals, plants etc that are in our care, and our impact stretches beyond our lifetimes in many cases.

I have heard of more than a few people building chicken palaces they dare not enter to house their little violent napoleons, and the hens kept therein will never breed, and can't even be retrieved from the cage to be treated if they are ill or injured, because the roosters are so violent. All of this doesn't matter if you don't want to breed them at all, of course. But keeping violent males often shows a lot of concern for the males' quality of life and usually considerably less for the females' quality of life, and the humans' quality of life.

Mama is NOT HAVING THIS. Honestly, I have always adored him (Until today, that is!!), and really do not want to get rid of him. My hens adore him as well. I'm hoping he snaps out of it but I just don't know.

If he does snap out of it, he'll probably be the first rooster ever documented to do so. It's basically unheard of, rather like humans changing character overnight. All it tends to do is escalate, which is why culling for minor warning signs is often advised. So far I've never seen warning signs turn out to be invalid.

Your hens will adore any rooster who looks after them. I think you'll be quite surprised how very much they don't care about him as an individual. I've seen more roosters bond strongly to a single hen than hens to a single rooster. Most hens seem to like a variety just as much as the roosters, actually, probably more so; if there are many great roosters around, they will assign a breeding season/clutch to one at a time, or several, and make sure they breed every great rooster they like. The roosters, on the other hand, always seem to try to get the same great hens season after season, but aren't often accepted; they get their turn when it comes. Most people don't keep enough roosters to see what the hens' opinion on it is, lol, but I do. Good roosters are always popular. Bad ones end up alone, unless the hens don't have a choice.

Because I keep them for eggs as well as meat and breeding projects, and keep them free-range and integrated not separated, I breed for nice natures, and because I have little children around as well as other animals, I have a zero-tolerance policy for abusive animals. No bullies, no killers. They can and do get along great, once you remove the violent ones, and it breeds true.

Any suggestions on what to do with my seemingly possessed rooster?? Has anyone else experienced this drastic change in behavior after two years?

Yes, I've seen something very similar in a few roosters I didn't breed myself but raised from a few weeks old. I don't know for sure why they became more aggressive after 2 years old but they did. The rest of the roosters, some from other people's places and some I bred and reared myself, didn't show that.

These were not human-aggressive roosters, but had been peaceful with other males, but after two years old became increasingly aggressive to other males and in one case to a female. So I culled them. The one who attacked me was bred by a woman who also bred one of the males who became increasingly aggressive, which I guess is one link, but that's about all.

The human-aggressive one didn't make it to a year old, he became too aggressive to everyone and everything. The other male she bred lasted a few years then smashed one of my best hens because she no longer wanted to mate with him. He was also almost completely infertile; he had several years of free opportunity to breed and all he managed was one weakly pullet offspring. The hens, as usual, were right about him.

In cattle, studies have shown a positive correlation between high aggression in males and low fertility, and I'd bet the same sort of thing happens with poultry, because my most aggressive males have always been low-fertility. If it's declining fertility that would potentially explain the increase in aggression as time goes by, because one theory is that the extra aggression in males is caused by the testosterone not being utilized correctly, but just remaining in the bloodstream in useless and aggravating amounts.

Perennially the subject of aggressive roosters comes up and the answers are always about the same:

Many say cull, having been-there done-that; like me, most of them have tried to train it out or breed it out and failed; some few others say "give him a chance! Just teach him who's boss" --- that group doesn't offer feedback on how long their roosters stayed away from them after a decent beating, though, so we don't know how long it worked for, but that's not how I want to live with my animals, personally... (If animal abuse is the answer, the answer to me is to not keep that animal). I've yet to hear any of that group give any long-term updates on their success even though they usually say they will. I used to be one of that group, before I ended up on this site though. Initially I did try to cure the issue, but gave up as it's a fool's errand. Not that it can't be done over enough generations, and not calling anyone who tries a fool, just using that old phrase to denote something ridiculously difficult and not likely to yield reward.

Another, also fairly small group says "keep them in cages so they can't attack". This group also tends to think aggressive males are more fertile but since they mainly keep aggressive males because they select for that trait as they believe it's a positive male trait, and they keep these males caged in isolated groups with females, their results are already skewed. This group also tends to victim-blame, i.e. whatever the animal did, it must be the person's fault. Don't treat males like pets, they often say.

Why not? Good males make good pets too; there are countless good males out there disproving all the things some people blame on intact males' hormones and instincts. It's quite a 'choose-your-own' story, lol.

Some people I know keep a dog who attacks their small child regularly; any time the dog attacks the child they cuss the child out, asking what he did to make the dog do what it did. Problem being the dog hunts the child and attacks him, it's fixated on him. He gets attacked from behind while minding his own business. Recently the dog bit the child rather seriously. Still, they're in the habit of blaming the child for everything the dog does. The child is 4 years old, the dog almost a year old. For the life of me I don't know why they won't take charge of the situation but I think the child's life may be at risk. For similar reasons I will not allow a bad rooster to breed, as it places other people, specifically children, at risk.

Sorry to be so judgmental, but there's my opinion on it, anyway. I hope you find what works for you.

Best wishes.

 

[centrarchid]

Could the behavior be recorded on video then posted on Youtube.com?

 

[Pinkaboo]

Hi chooks, I have a very friendly cockerel who loves to sit on my knee and be stroked
I did think if he ever got aggressive I'd tough it out and still keep him
But after reading your post I don't think I would anymore

The fact you've given such a good detailed argument
Makes me realise it would be my heart ruling my head
Sorry ganjaroo I think he has to go

 

[centrarchid]

I do not like it when someone has less knowledge about something but writes better than I do. You are perpetuating the bad rooster management system.

 

[Kev]

chooksforlife gave the most excellent and spot on answer.

Cull him- please do not "re-home", IMO that is dumping one's own problem on someone else.

There are plenty of well mannered roosters who need a new home. Well mannered roosters are infinitely more pleasurable to have around than "so very protective" roosters.

Your hens will soon forget that roo, they do not have long memories or permanent bonds.