Adopted rooster aggressive toward flock

[Mrs. K]

I do think you are way too long on roosters for there to be much peace in your flock. I think you got this rooster, because you think the lame rooster is on the way out. But what was wrong with the bantam roosters? Are you keeping them? As state above, the new boy agrees with you, the old boy should be gone.

I think you could get a peaceful flock, but not with the groups of roosters. I think you need to do quite a bit of culling one way or another. Could you take some pictures of your set up?

I would not worry about homing the new boy, he will follow the hens and where ever they roost, he will follow.

Mrs KK

 

[catfalls]

Ya ok. As stated the older girls will likely tune him in. Make sure he's not too aggressive. I had a half banty beat the crap out of my head rooster a couple of months back. He and his brother put my older boy in tatters. I separated them with a warning and when my boy was beaten and bloody I had to axe the pair. They'd known him since they were chicks. He was their dad. No problem at all for a year and a half. Then the rumble. I hated having to do it but part of a working homestead is making the hard choices.

Sorry to hear about your experience with your rooster's offspring. We had a similar experience with our current big rooster. His dad was our head rooster until he came down with bumblefoot (seems to favor these heavy breed roosters). We kept him in a large dog crate for about a month in order to treat his feet and when we put him back in with the flock his own son, who had taken over as alpha rooster, severely beat his still-recovering dad. Although dad never regained his dominant status, mainly due to his compromised health, he did live a couple of more years and continued to allow his son to dominate.

 

[catfalls]

I do think you are way too long on roosters for there to be much peace in your flock. I think you got this rooster, because you think the lame rooster is on the way out. But what was wrong with the bantam roosters? Are you keeping them? As state above, the new boy agrees with you, the old boy should be gone.

I think you could get a peaceful flock, but not with the groups of roosters. I think you need to do quite a bit of culling one way or another. Could you take some pictures of your set up?

I would not worry about homing the new boy, he will follow the hens and where ever they roost, he will follow.

Mrs KK

we keep all roosters until they become a problem. Our previous batch of bantams were 6 roosters (no hens). Four of them fought constantly and we were able to rehome them. The other two are now 2 years old and never shown any aggressiveness until we adopted this new rooster.
We've had 7 roosters before (in 18 years of keeping a flock) and this was our only experience having any of them fight each other. Our current batch of bantams was 4 roosters and 2 hens (we lost one hen). Again, these 4 have never fought with each other or any of our other roosters.

 

[catfalls]

"All's well that end's well...."
Day 5: I let the entire flock out to free range this afternoon. We've been treating our old rooster's bumblefoot and he is gaining strength and stability. I carried the new roo out to join our group of seven 4-month old hens and they immediately scattered to try to get away from his juvenile behavior. He then started sparring with my old rooster, I intervened a couple of times but eventually the 4-month old realized that he was no match for my huge senior roo. Then, magically, everyone just started getting along! Junior is hanging with the girls, walking around all the other roos, small and large, and they all seem to have adjusted well.

 

[Greenwolf]

"All's well that end's well...."
Day 5: I let the entire flock out to free range this afternoon. We've been treating our old rooster's bumblefoot and he is gaining strength and stability. I carried the new roo out to join our group of seven 4-month old hens and they immediately scattered to try to get away from his juvenile behavior. He then started sparring with my old rooster, I intervened a couple of times but eventually the 4-month old realized that he was no match for my huge senior roo. Then, magically, everyone just started getting along! Junior is hanging with the girls, walking around all the other roos, small and large, and they all seem to have adjusted well.

That's awesome. My daughters and I often say that chickens are like the domestics cats of the bird world. Nosey, arrogant, sometimes sweet and cuddly, but amongst each other once the dust settles everyone gets along like family. I'm really happy to hear that everyone is getting along really well.