2 yr old rooster has gone psycho

[Rhandi74]

I have a question. I have a 4 week old broody raised chick that attacked me the other day. I could not see one of the chicks and I reached in their house to make sure all 4 chicks were in there and he ran at me and pecked me. I thought it was quite funny but I know that it will not be when he is my rooster's size. Does this mean he will not be a good rooster? Is it to early to tell? All my chickens are very people friendly including my rooster. This is the only time he has done this to me.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I have a question. I have a 4 week old broody raised chick that attacked me the other day. I could not see one of the chicks and I reached in their house to make sure all 4 chicks were in there and he ran at me and pecked me. I thought it was quite funny but I know that it will not be when he is my rooster's size. Does this mean he will not be a good rooster? Is it to early to tell? All my chickens are very people friendly including my rooster. This is the only time he has done this to me.

I think your little chick was thinking your hand was edible--he/she wasn't "attacking" you.

Do you hand feed?

I have a bunch of two-month old chicks that are doing that. They are little Velociraptors at the moment. It is my own fault--I gave handfuls of live meal worms, so they know really, really good things come from my hands.

 

[Rhandi74]

I think your little chick was thinking your hand was edible--he/she wasn't "attacking" you.

Do you hand feed?

I have a bunch of two-month old chicks that are doing that.  They are little Velociraptors at the moment.  It is my own fault--I gave handfuls of live meal worms, so they know really, really good things come from my hands.

I do hand feed but my hen gets it from my hand and drops it and calls the chicks. She hatched 4 chicks and they live with my flock. I think he was scared because they were trapped in their house, which is a dog house that is under the coop. I was just not sure if it was a bad sign with him being so young. I am assuming Jewel, my hen is going to move them to the coop soon because she takes them up every day.

Here he is, I am pretty sure he is boy.
Meet Blizzard

 

[chooks4life]

I'm pretty inexperienced with roosters and cockerels but not with behavior or training. The vast majority of the roosters I've grown out were just not nice at all. I've thought long and hard on what my contribution to the temperament problem is/was.

It probably was not your fault at all. It's strongly heritable stuff. A good animal, with a positive mentality towards humans, doesn't turn on a whim or slight provocation; they will put up with all manner of mistakes, mishandling, etc, good naturedly and without holding a grudge about it. You don't need to dress or act any specific way to prevent them from being aggressive because their benign natures are not based on what you're doing. That's about as safe as any animal gets. Any animal only appeased by certain human behaviors, and triggered by others, is not safe, it's 'managed', and it's a continuing liability.

They've got thousands upon thousands of years of genetic selection behind them to cause them to behave like tolerant, trusting domesticated animals, putting up with all manner of unnatural interactions, not reacting like their wild ancestors.

If you were not outright terrorizing your animals then there isn't really a justification for their aggressive mentality towards you... It's just inherited, most likely. Seeing their fathers would probably be very explanatory. The breeder/s responsible for the last few generations probably keeps 'man-fighters' so their offspring automatically view you as enemy or competition.

Although I did do some things wrong (such as not recognizing that aggressive behavior of picking up sticks and stones as truly aggressive), I really believe that they just are not nice birds. The majority of my cockerels have been Ameraucanas from one (show) breeder.

You didn't do anything wrong by not noticing the warning signs, since there's nothing you could have done once you noticed them except mark those chooks to cull. That threat you describe is never an invitation to any sort of open dialogue to sort things out. It's a warning of an attack to come. It indicates an already-made decision to attack you. A rooster who does not intend you harm will never show you this behavior. A rooster who does intend you harm will never show you this behavior without following through on it. There is nothing ambiguous or uncertain about that behavior.

It does not represent an opportunity to turn things around with intensive training, like a dog's growl might. Sounds like you are right --- they're not nice birds at all. Not surprised to hear they come from a show breeder, every purebred breeder I've known personally so far has kept vicious males just because they looked good.

Of the original group of Ameraucanas, I have one 17-month old cock bird left he is coq au vin waiting to happen. This year's group of 12 are now 6 months old, and the older bird needs to go as soon as I stop putting it off. (I am the queen of procratination when it comes to slaughter.)

The 6-month old Ameraucana cockerels are just now starting to crow and exhibit sexual behaviors. They have been slow to mature, which is pretty typical for the breed.

Due to my inexperience, I don't know what "normal" juvenile sexual behavior looks like. Some have chased and grabbed--looks more like attacked to me-- the hens/pullets that are free ranging with them. (The stupid nasty cock bird--who is so nice with the hens but so nasty with me--isn't doing anything to protect his girls!) Is that normal juvenile cockerel behavior? Do I have cockerels that are too nasty for hens or just stupid young klutzes who will learn in time? Should not the oldest rooster put the youngsters in their place?

Your older rooster sounds daft and definitely cull worthy. Yes, it is his job to correct the juvenile males when they forget their manners and teach them what is acceptable. Your hens should also be giving the cockerels a butt-kicking for their rudeness.

The disjointed social behaviors you refer to are common, though, with chickens who have a strong lineage of artificially incubated and gender-segregated rearing behind them. It takes a few generations to fix that, even once you begin breeding your own.

At this stage it's too early to tell if it's just the 'terrible teens' stage. (This stage is not inherent to all chooks, just those with deficient social instincts, after a few generations of family rearing and combined social group life they will enter puberty acting like mature and good natured roosters, well mannered, not brutal like some cockerels. Provided you cull against the nastiest, of course).

They may settle down and begin respecting hens but if they don't do so within 3 months I'd expect they're always going to present some level of threat of potential harm to your hens. They're not insensible to the fact that their behavior is unpleasant and painful for the hens. They know.

They just don't care at the moment, and may never care. Needless to say that's not the mentality of a decent and trustworthy rooster there. If it persists it's the mentality of a rooster who mates dying hens or persists with mating a hen who is laying, or injured, or on a clutch of chicks, despite the distress and harm he is causing. Definitely the sort to cull, if they grow a few months older without showing any consideration for the hens.

I had a rooster once who used to get onto the nest boxes with hens and mate with them there, which was an unusual time to initiate mating... The hens were not too keen but there is such a thing as a 'courtesy mate' where they just put up with it since it's largely inevitable when living with callous roosters, and mating will get him to leave them alone sooner. Roosters who insist on mating when hens are not willing provoke this resigned behavior and it's not socially healthy at all. Anyway, with the very next generation most of his sons showed a nasty and life threatening predisposition to aggressively mating with hens while they were in the physical process of actually laying eggs... That is physically very detrimental for obvious reasons. It appeared to cause them severe pain. I culled hard to get that trait out. That was one rooster, with a mild behavior, that showed as a strong trait in his sons. He didn't mate with hens while they laid eggs, but he did mate with them very soon before or after, and that was all it took; his sons continued the trend, but in very aggravated expression.

Hens do not want to mate while an egg is moving into the tract to be laid, and a normal rooster should respect that, for her safety's sake. Makes no sense for him to try to breed at such a time. It's important, not some 'anthropomorphized ideal' as some say, for males to respect rejections from females. There are times for mating and times for not mating and if he's ignoring her signals he'll never know which is which. Such males would naturally trend towards eradicating themselves from the genepool by killing their mates. In order to keep hens safe it's important to cull abusive males who show no compunction about forcing matings when the hen has clearly indicated her unwillingness. I've had some males who would attempt to mate with hens who were brooding or snuggling clutches of chicks --- serious liabilities.

If they've been raised to puberty separate from adult females they can be bereft of the instinct required to interact positively with them, retaining only the most basic instinct (mate) and so this can begin a nasty cycle of clumsy or rough grabbing, mating, etc which leads to hens avoiding them, so they learn to chase, and repeat... The rooster should be stopping this, or the hens, but cage bred chooks often have a sort of obsessive intensity and social insensitivity that frightens more socially stable chooks. They're not responding to normal social cues or abiding by the rules. Socially normal chooks often treat cage bred chooks like they're psychopaths, which I guess they kind of are.

They may settle down but only time will tell.

In my experience, in normal family groups, males and females will fight for alpha position over one another like normal siblings until they're approaching puberty, when they just both exhibit a sort of mutual disinterest in it and voluntarily quit their usual playfights before they go anywhere.

Around that time, the cockerels will start trying to mate older hens, those who appear more sexually mature than their pullet sisters, but unless they're pretty good sweet talkers they'll receive a lot of rejections. Socially normal hens have very little tolerance for such immature males trying to initiate mating and they will continue to put the boys in their place for a little while, but once the boys start showing sexual behaviors generally that's when the roosters will step in and begin putting them in their place.

Neither gender of adult has any issue with willing matings normally, but rude attempts that persist beyond rejection are corrected. Juvenile males who begin sexual behaviors with the natural preceding 'wooing' behaviors (rather than attempting to mount without warning or invitation) are rarely short of a willing mate; so those who feed hens (not just pretend to have food to attract them) and who act like mature males the soonest are accepted the soonest. Those juveniles only fixated on mating without building positive associations first are soundly ostracized until they learn their social manners. That's a socially mutually respectful flock dynamic anyway, but many people keep males who are detrimental to the females and consider that normal.

Hope this helps. Best wishes.

 

[subhanalah]

I have a little silkier Cockrell who tidbitted for the girls at a very young age, but he was also a jerk to them sometimes. He's sticking around long enough to make a pot of soup. If he were a bigger breed, he'd have been gone long ago.

 

[chooks4life]

I have a question. I have a 4 week old broody raised chick that attacked me the other day. I could not see one of the chicks and I reached in their house to make sure all 4 chicks were in there and he ran at me and pecked me. I thought it was quite funny but I know that it will not be when he is my rooster's size. Does this mean he will not be a good rooster? Is it to early to tell? All my chickens are very people friendly including my rooster. This is the only time he has done this to me.

It does look like a male, and it is hard to say for sure, but I would consider him on notice just in case. Sort of keeping an eye on him, more than 'one strike lost already'.

It could be a symptom of a mental or physical issue (i.e. with the light behind you, perhaps he only saw your hand/arm and reacted like it was a snake; that's not too uncommon, though not really common either); could be due to bad eyesight (such animals are often a bit proactive on potential predators or frightening things as they are overcompensating); it could be because he thought you had food but I've always hand-fed and mistakes with pecking hands are not common at all in my experience. Some chooks are a bit dumber than others and will always make mistakes though.

Could also be due to mild, temporary toxicity or deficiency (a common and semi regular issue with all animals and humans, not usually sufficient to cause any clinical symptoms, just bad nerves and overreactions being two of the most common symptoms). Lots and lots of things can cause that... Like illness or injury so mild you won't see symptoms, or being disturbed at night by something so the body did not get a chance to repair and grow at ideal rates for that time period, etc.

He could have eaten something which took more calcium magnesium than his intake for the day and left him short so his nerves were overly reactive. The brain is a bundle of nerves, basically, and if your nerves are 'shot' or you're shaky or irritable or jumpy because of lack of magnesium/calcium etc then your brain is also affected. The same is true for animals, of course, if they're overreacting they're often nutritionally deficient for whatever reason, no matter how great their diet is, it's something that occurs with some level of regularity due to common lifestyle and environmental factors the world over.

That said, I don't much like the look of him. There is a certain something about mentally abnormal males and females which is visible in them from a very young age and he doesn't look quite right to me. However, time will tell. It'd be educational if you followed up with an update a few months from now.

Best wishes.

 

[chooks4life]

I have a little silkier Cockrell who tidbitted for the girls at a very young age, but he was also a jerk to them sometimes. He's sticking around long enough to make a pot of soup. If he were a bigger breed, he'd have been gone long ago.

The tidbitting is good as long as he's genuine, but some roosters fake it or even do the threat tidbitting to girls too. No place in normal society for them.

Banties are quite tasty, too, I prefer them to large fowl.

 

[carolinasculpture]

Hi! Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. We had an aggressive roo, a polish who became dinner, but we did broody hatch 3 of his eggs. We got a hen and 2 Roos. One roo was skiddish and unreliable, also was number2. Never had any trouble with him, but thought it might be coming. Had him to dinner. The other had a black astralorp, very calm, for mom. He turned out great! Not friendly, but not aggressive either. He stayed out if my way, but was good to the hens and in the long run, fought to his death with a predator to protect his hens. Pretty much ignored people. We miss him!

 

[Rhandi74]

It does look like a male, and it is hard to say for sure, but I would consider him on notice just in case. Sort of keeping an eye on him, more than 'one strike lost already'.

It could be a symptom of a mental or physical issue (i.e. with the light behind you, perhaps he only saw your hand/arm and reacted like it was a snake; that's not too uncommon, though not really common either); could be due to bad eyesight (such animals are often a bit proactive on potential predators or frightening things as they are overcompensating); it could be because he thought you had food but I've always hand-fed and mistakes with pecking hands are not common at all in my experience. Some chooks are a bit dumber than others and will always make mistakes though.

Could also be due to mild, temporary toxicity or deficiency (a common and semi regular issue with all animals and humans, not usually sufficient to cause any clinical symptoms, just bad nerves and overreactions being two of the most common symptoms). Lots and lots of things can cause that... Like illness or injury so mild you won't see symptoms, or being disturbed at night by something so the body did not get a chance to repair and grow at ideal rates for that time period, etc.

He could have eaten something which took more calcium magnesium than his intake for the day and left him short so his nerves were overly reactive. The brain is a bundle of nerves, basically, and if your nerves are 'shot' or you're shaky or irritable or jumpy because of lack of magnesium/calcium etc then your brain is also affected. The same is true for animals, of course, if they're overreacting they're often nutritionally deficient for whatever reason, no matter how great their diet is, it's something that occurs with some level of regularity due to common lifestyle and environmental factors the world over.

That said, I don't much like the look of him. There is a certain something about mentally abnormal males and females which is visible in them from a very young age and he doesn't look quite right to me. However, time will tell. It'd be educational if you followed up with an update a few months from now.

Best wishes.

Thank you for that info. I will follow up on this thread as he grows. He will definatly be dinner if he continues the behavior. Since the incident he has let me pick him up without attacking so maybe it is just a one time thing. I have added vitamins and electrolytes to the water so hopefully if it is a deficiency it might help.

 

[Folly's place]

This is a good thread! If the birds have a good balanced diet for their age, any individual who needs additional nutrients of any sort IS NOT parent material! Some younglings have genetic issues that cause them to need more than normal care/ suppliments/ etc; they are not worth adding to the breeding flock. Survival with extra care is fine; reproducing the problem in the flock is a really bad idea. Mary