8 month cockerel and kids

[SamCO]

Ok chicken experts. I need some advice here. I have a beautiful
Salmon Faverolles cockerel about 8 months old. He’s a bit rough on his 13 ladies, but I understand that he’s a teenager and still learning. He’s been mostly a great bird. He has recently started to hate my husband and come after him when he walks by. (I do 99% of chicken chores, and so the husband pribably is a stranger to him) And he has once flown at my 5 year old. She’s my youngest, and is a chicken addict. The girls love her! She can pick up hens that I can barely get close too. She’s now nervous to go hang with the birds because of the cockerel. We’ve been working on having her (and my other kids)carry a stick with them that they can sorta tap/ push him out of the way when we walk through. Overall, the cockerel mostly ignores them, but I do not trust him. My birds free range on almost 2 acres most days, and my kids are also free range . Is it wise to give him more time to grow up and mature since he’s an adolescent now? Or should we cull him? I have been preparing for culling, since we’ve never done it before. My kids are all ok with him being gone. I just feel so sad about killing him, if we just need to give him time to mature. But my kids come first, so if there’s not a good likelihood that he’ll mature into a nice boy, we will do it. I’ve read lots about rooster reform, and feel I’m up to the task to try, but not sure it’s smart with kids around.

Be brutally honest here. For those who have rooster experience, what’s the most responsible choice?

 

[3KillerBs]

And he has once flown at my 5 year old.

IMO, that's an automatic death sentence.

Roosters attack at eye level on a child. She could be permanently maimed or blinded.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When an immature cockerel is having behavioral problems with pullets or mature hens I often look for ways to give him a chance. To me that is usually a matter of maturity. But he has attacked your husband and daughter. That's different. I'd never trust him again around people. It sounds like you have trained him to not attack you, at least so far. Your husband and maybe even you daughter (she's pretty young) may be able to train him to not attack them, but anyone else would be vulnerable. It may be erring on the side of safety but if he were mine he'd be gone.

 

[SamCO]

Thank you both for confirming my decision. I didn’t want to jump the gun and cull him too quickly, but it sounds like that’s what needs to be done. It’s hard, because I haven’t actually seen any “attacks” on the kids, but did see when he went after my husband. I guess if he goes after ANY people, he’s a risk. Guess I’ll have to gather all my courage and get it done.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

People talk about a rooster's spurs being painful and dangerous, and they are. But one of my roosters came flogging at me, wings and spurs, and I smacked him away as hard as I could with my cane, and he came back at me and hit me in the knee with his beak and just about took me down - and I'm a pretty tough old bird myself. My husband had to rescue me as I staggered into the house weeping with pain. If a rooster got a child in the eye or face with that kind of force, I can tell you, that would be a serious injury! Take no chances with your precious little ones, eliminate the danger immediately. Don't think that just because he's "only a bird" that he can't do much harm.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

He'll make a lovely stew or dumplings.

 

[Yardmom]

We had a roo when my children were young that we carried a rake for. No one got hurt, but it made that first year not as enjoyable for the kids as it should have been. We have have had close to a dozen roosters since then and no rakes are needed. If I were to do it again we would have culled that rooster sooner. Even if your children and husband could be trained to handle the rooster the children's chicken experience will be better with out him. (In my experience human aggression isn't something cockerals grow out of )

 

[Ridgerunner]

People talk about a rooster's spurs being painful and dangerous, and they are. But one of my roosters came flogging at me, wings and spurs, and I smacked him away as hard as I could with my cane, and he came back at me and hit me in the knee with his beak and just about took me down

Good point. People fixate on spurs but SamCO's cockerel may not have much for spurs yet, not that young. A lot of the problems you see on here like this are with immature cockerels that don't have real spurs yet.

I've seen a hen take a frog apart to bite sized pieces with her beak. Beaks are sharp and strong. It's not just the males that can do damage with their beaks. And they all have sharp claws capable of doing real damage.

Even if that cockerel does not have long sharp spurs he is still dangerous, especially to kids but also to adults.

 

[Isadora]

Thank you both for confirming my decision. I didn’t want to jump the gun and cull him too quickly, but it sounds like that’s what needs to be done. It’s hard, because I haven’t actually seen any “attacks” on the kids, but did see when he went after my husband. I guess if he goes after ANY people, he’s a risk. Guess I’ll have to gather all my courage and get it done.

It's the right choice when there's children involved.
I had an EE cockerel two summers ago that I was hoping to keep for breeding since he was handsome. I gave my kids a bucket of old peaches to give the chickens and they came back reporting that the cockerel had chased them. Initially I brushed it off that the peach tossing must have alarmed him or something but the very next day he tried to attack me and my 5 yr old son. He was dead and the meat resting in the fridge within a couple hours.
I now have a mature mixed rooster who is a perfect gentlemen. Never shown any human aggression whatsoever. Believe me, if you ever get another male who is a good boy you will always be extra grateful for him since you had a previous bad one to compare him to.

 

[Mrs. K]

Most of us keep the first rotten rooster too long.

Roosters have ruined the whole chicken experience for a lot of kids. Hope he is gone.