2 yr old rooster has gone psycho

[Ganjaroo]

Quote: I haven't started them on antis yet, just the Sulmet for one day, then I decided to worm them due to popular demand. No, nothing in the throat. I'm told that this very well could have been a weather, pressure thing..and it makes sense. I haven't seen him do it since.

 

[6of6chicks]

I've had dozens of people tell me that they hit and kick their roosters to "show them who's boss", which personally I find ridiculous, ..not to mention cruel. Sorry, I have no time to go and find you the posts.

I read a post yesterday about a dog that had killed a couple of chickens. Someone suggested they needed to show the dog "who's boss" by "punishing it with the dead chicken." I don't know what they meant by that, but every time I hear people talk about showing an animal "who's boss" it makes me nauseous. There are safe, humane, and POSITIVE ways of putting yourself at the top of a pack (or pecking order, or whatever) that have nothing to do with violence. I can tell my dog I'm boss simply by instructing her to sit and wait for me to walk out the door before she does. I don't need to kick her on the way out just to get the message across. I realize that's a dog example and not applicable to a rooster, but surely there are non-violent strategies that work for birds as well?

 

[Ganjaroo]

Quote:
I had the best behaved dog EVER, and he was never hit, not even once in his 17 years. As for the birds, yes, ...I believe there is, and I was practicing some of the techniques I have learned from this thread and others, ..until my roo got sick! To tell you the truth, I'd rather have him back to his feisty old self than be dealing with this. Thankfully though, ..he does seem to be feeling a bit better..

 

[Folly's place]

I have had cockrels as young as eight weeks of age challenge me; they did NOT improve with age! I think the little guy who's charging you is not going to get better. Some need to see the crock pot, and some will be an asset to your flock. Mary

 

[subhanalah]

I'm pretty sure this incident was just foreshadowing that he was feeling ill. Illness can put an animal on a hair trigger.

 

[chooks4life]

Reply to chook.. Thank you for that informative answer. I still have scars on my hand from a RIR rooster from12+ years ago. We cut his spurs off but they grew back.

You're welcome. Spurs are basically like nails, claws, etc they have cuticles and 'beds' which regrow unless removed. If severely damaged enough they may produce 'scur'-like growths instead of the proper shape. Some people use hot potatoes to despur roosters but in the very few instances where I decided to alter a rooster's spurs I only cut a few mils off the tip, not enough to hurt or bleed, but enough to blunten it. That point's what does the most damage, even the remaining 98% of the spur can't do anywhere near the same amount of damage minus that point. It is something you need to keep doing if you decide to do it though as it does grow back, of course.

We have not had chickens in more than ten years, so I am re-learning things. We just got back into chickens again and have 16 seven-week-old RIR "hens" (& 1 black sex link) who were all supposed to be girls, but 4 are looking decidedly male. I have noticed one of them darting up and pecking me hard on the hand and running away nearly every time I feed or water and had wondered if this was aggressive or just playful.

Since this is not a normal play behavior for them, safe to say it's not the most positive sign. It could be sexual attraction, aggression, or some obsessive reaction to your hand for whatever reason, perhaps confusing it with food or confusing the connection between your hand holding food and your hand itself. Not all chickens appear to have more brains than a goldfish, but most are much smarter than given credit for.

The others do not do this. The hens, by contrast, will only stand there and peck gently if they see a freckle and they do not run away.

I'd pay attention to those freckles if I were you, just in case. Skin cancer is pretty common in my family, as are the skin types prone to freckling (at least for some of us) and the only time I've seen our animals pay attention to freckles/moles/spots, it's because they are no longer benign. They can sense some kind of change in them much like some dogs do, but I've seen cats also react to precancerous cells as well.

However, they will also peck specks of food off one another and you, and some investigative pecks of a very, very gentle nature are part of that, but if they keep at it, I'd get them checked. The freckles, that is, not the chickens, lol.

I will now pay more attention to their behavior to make sure I can cull them early before they get like "psycho rooster". The bigger they are, the worse they can hurt you because they get so much stronger.

Amen to that, lol, and they often get far more cunning too, and learn to bide their time and how to make the most of their best chances to seriously hurt their intended victim.

I have no problem with having a couple of roosters, but I will have to learn how to fry chicken if one goes psycho on me. I do have one question chook, what is the deal with the chickens getting on top of the 1 gallon waterers and acting like they are wanting to either rip it open or mate with it? I have never seen this until now and have seen both hens and roosters do this. I switched to gallon ones instead of quart to keep them from turning them over with this behavior.

That's strange. Are they squatting and shuffling into position to mate, or just attacking it?

btw, ..for those trying to help me figure out what is wrong with my roo, ..no crow from him this morning. Yesterday evening while observing him, I noticed he made this yawning motion, ..only it was not a regular yawn. More like he was stretching his throat or something, ..and he did this 7/8 times in a row. I see nothing in his throat. ..just thought I'd mention it.
Now I must go, or I'll be late for work again. I am taking enough flak for missing work due to a sick rooster. Good day to all!

Sounds like 'burping' to me, but could be a lot of things. That sort of head/neck motion is most often seen in animals with gas buildup they're releasing, which can be due to just the feed type or impacted crops or gizzards producing excessive fermentation, but it can also be due to something stuck in the throat.

About his red butt from before, one family line in my flock developed reddened abdominal skin and reddened neck, throat, and leg skin too. It was genetic in that case. Don't know what's going on with yours there.

Best wishes.

 

[Lora Indy]

Ganjaroo, I hope your roo is doing better.

I have a few observations on behavior, both learned and genetic.

Pinning in parrots-chickens do it too. They have a very complex non-verbal communication system. They alter the color of their face/comb/wattles by blood flow, they posture and fluff or slick their feathers down in a huge number of variations. Even the direction their feet face and width of stance has a meaning.
Unfortunately, we don't speak the same language. A happy, confidant rooster that is standing tall and enjoying a good morning looks very much the same as a rooster that is about to attack.There is a subtle difference in the angle the head is held, a more direct look and a stillness about them before they explode into action. The vast majority of people have no clue as to what is coming. The signs are too subtle and in a different language.

Illness and injury can both correlate with aggressive/aberrant behavior. I have culled 4 pullets in the last year which each had a serious aggression problem and each had a serious physical issue that wasn't apparent until the feathers were off. The barred rock that was a nestbox terrorist had a fist sized wad of ovarian cysts. She never laid more than 1 or 2 small eggs a week and took about 30 weeks to come into lay. She must have been in considerable pain.
The ee that I caught doing her best to kill chicks never could come into lay as there was no opening connecting the oviduct to the vent.Another ee was a hardcore egg eater that progressed to pecking at the vents of hens as they were laying.She had a strangely narrow ribcage with a twisted and bowed breastbone. Another aggressive, nonlaying pullet had a massive tumor filling her abdomen to the point it blocked her oviduct and intestines. On the surface she looked fat but in reality she was starving to death.


All of those pullets were from the same hatchery batch. Of the 15 pullets and 1 cock only 1 pullet was even sort of friendly. The rest were stupidly aggressive. I ended up penning them away from the rest of the flock for the safety and sanity of all concerned.

 

[ivan3]

  Ganjaroo, I hope your roo is doing better.

I have a few observations on behavior, both learned and genetic.

Pinning in parrots-chickens do it too. They have a very complex non-verbal communication system. They alter the color of their face/comb/wattles by blood flow, they posture and fluff or slick their feathers down in a huge number of variations. Even the direction their feet face and width of stance has a meaning.
Unfortunately, we don't speak the same language. A happy, confidant rooster that is standing tall and enjoying a good morning looks very much the same as a rooster that is about to attack.There is a subtle difference in the angle the head is held, a more direct look and a stillness about them before they explode into action. The vast majority of people have no clue as to what is coming. The signs are too subtle and in a different language.

Illness and injury can both correlate with aggressive/aberrant behavior. I have culled 4 pullets in the last year which each had a serious aggression problem and each had a serious physical issue that wasn't apparent until the feathers were off. The barred rock that was a nestbox terrorist had a fist sized wad of ovarian cysts. She never laid more than 1 or 2 small eggs a week and took about 30 weeks to come into lay. She must have been in considerable pain.
The ee that I caught doing her best to kill chicks never could come into lay as there was no opening connecting the oviduct to the vent.Another ee was a hardcore egg eater that progressed to pecking at the vents of hens as they were laying.She had a strangely narrow ribcage with a twisted and bowed breastbone. Another aggressive, nonlaying pullet had a massive tumor filling her abdomen to the point it blocked her oviduct and intestines. On the surface she looked fat but in reality she was starving to death.


All of those pullets were from the same hatchery batch. Of the 15 pullets and 1 cock only 1 pullet was even sort of friendly. The rest were stupidly aggressive. I ended up penning them away from the rest of the flock for the safety and sanity of all concerned.

Thanks for posting up your experiences. To further emphasize your observations, I'll just quote from an article I linked to earlier in thread:

The intensification of the production system in the poultry industry and the vertical integration of the poultry agribusiness have brought profound changes in the physical and social environment of domestic fowls in comparison to their ancestors and have modified the expression of aggression and submission. The present review has covered the studies focusing on the different aspects linked to aggressiveness in the genus Gallus. The evaluated studies have shown that aggressiveness and subordination are complex behavioral expressions that involve genetic differences between breeds, strains and individuals, and differences in the cerebral development during growth, in the hormonal metabolism, in the rearing conditions of individuals, including feed restriction, density, housing type (litter or cage), influence of the opposite sex during the growth period, existence of hostile stimuli (pain and frustration), ability to recognize individuals and social learning. The utilization of fighting birds as experimental material in the study of mechanisms that have influence on the manifestation of aggressiveness in the genus Gallus might comparatively help to elucidate important biological aspects of such behavior.

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-635X2006000100001

*Good luck with your roo, Ganjaroo!

 

[Fancychooklady]

Thanks for posting up your experiences. To further emphasize your observations, I'll just quote from an article I linked to earlier in thread:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-635X2006000100001

*Good luck with your roo, Ganjaroo!

Thank you for sharing this link , I have bookmarked it and will attempt to read it in its entirety later.

 

[centrarchid]

  Ganjaroo, I hope your roo is doing better.

I have a few observations on behavior, both learned and genetic.

Pinning in parrots-chickens do it too. They have a very complex non-verbal communication system. They alter the color of their face/comb/wattles by blood flow, they posture and fluff or slick their feathers down in a huge number of variations. Even the direction their feet face and width of stance has a meaning.
Unfortunately, we don't speak the same language. A happy, confidant rooster that is standing tall and enjoying a good morning looks very much the same as a rooster that is about to attack.There is a subtle difference in the angle the head is held, a more direct look and a stillness about them before they explode into action. The vast majority of people have no clue as to what is coming. The signs are too subtle and in a different language.

Illness and injury can both correlate with aggressive/aberrant behavior. I have culled 4 pullets in the last year which each had a serious aggression problem and each had a serious physical issue that wasn't apparent until the feathers were off. The barred rock that was a nestbox terrorist had a fist sized wad of ovarian cysts. She never laid more than 1 or 2 small eggs a week and took about 30 weeks to come into lay. She must have been in considerable pain.
The ee that I caught doing her best to kill chicks never could come into lay as there was no opening connecting the oviduct to the vent.Another ee was a hardcore egg eater that progressed to pecking at the vents of hens as they were laying.She had a strangely narrow ribcage with a twisted and bowed breastbone. Another aggressive, nonlaying pullet had a massive tumor filling her abdomen to the point it blocked her oviduct and intestines. On the surface she looked fat but in reality she was starving to death.


All of those pullets were from the same hatchery batch. Of the 15 pullets and 1 cock only 1 pullet was even sort of friendly. The rest were stupidly aggressive. I ended up penning them away from the rest of the flock for the safety and sanity of all concerned.

The non-verbal language is relatively easy to learn. Backyard folks interacting with birds without partitions are better suited than most to learn it. The vocalizations alone, especially at close range are very informative.

edited by staff