Advice needed

[Kel20]

Hi,
This is my first time here. I have had chicken for 6 years now but this is the first year we had a rooster. He is only 10 months old and is really good with his girls, except with one.
I have 7 hens and he is the only boy.
They all are happy around him but he does not like 1 of them. She is my biggest and oldest hen and had stood up to him when he was younger, now she will let him mate with her but he hurts her. He mates and then attacks her until she bleeds.
I have kept away from him for 3 weeks now until her wound healed as he took a big chunk of skin from her neck. It was horrible. I have tried to have them all together in a big open space to reintroduce her again many times now with supervision but he really goes for her and she is terrified of him.
I can see that she is dominant and kind off the boss of the hens and maybe that is why he doesn't like her?.

My question is.
Has anyone had any success with getting the two together again?
I want to keep them both but it is time consuming making sure they are always apart. Please help.

 

[Isaac 0]

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello there and welcome to BYC!

I moved your thread over to our Managing your Flock forums for more help. I hope you can get this sorted out!

 

[Fuchsia]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

 

[Kel20]

Hello there and welcome to BYC!

I moved your thread over to our Managing your Flock forums for more help. I hope you can get this sorted out!

Thanks

 

[TwoCrows]

Tagging a few members that might be able to help you.

@Wyorp Rock
@azygous
@Callender Girl

 

[Callender Girl]

I have not had success. My rooster very actively mates with anyone he can get close to.. A full-sized roo, he also mated my bantam girls.

All of my chickens free range during the day -- except Sir Henry the Loud, an Iowa Blue, and his two daughters (and I gather eggs daily so there won't be inbred babies). The three of them live in a coop and run in the middle of the yard so they can see and social with the others but Sir Henry can't make contact. That does not stop him from dancing for their benefit. He has not overworked the Blue girls, and they seem to all co-exist happily.

Good luck! I hope someone has information that will help you.

 

[sourland]

Generally such behavior escalates. I doubt that he will ever accept the hen because of the fact that she stood up to and challenged him. It may very well be necessary to separate them of rehome one of them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've had something similar, an 11-moth-old cockerel that had been raised with the flock. I followed my normal method, when the cockerel was about 7 months old I removed the mature rooster from the flock and left the hens and pullets to the boy. Usually that's a smooth transition and it didn't start out that badly. Some pullets and hens accepted the cockerel and would squat for him but the dominant hen would not. If she saw him mating one of the others she'd knock him off. She was dominant and wanted to stay that way. I even saw the dominant hen go through the mating act with a pullet in front of that cockerel, daring him to do something about it. He did not.

When he turned 11 months he finally matured enough to take over. He'd been bigger than the dominant hen for months but did not try to take over until then. That's one of the reasons I think spirit counts more than size. Sorry, I digress. I really do believe it is the size of the fight in the chicken, not the size of the chicken in the fight.

For two days it was pretty violent. He won the fight and got to stay with the flock. When that hen got close he'd charge her, trying to peck her head mainly, that's where he could do a lot of damage. It never got bloody but it was pretty brutal. Then, after two days of that it was over. Peace was restored and the flock became peaceful. She and that cockerel became best buddies. I did not see any behaviors that triggered the change but somehow she let him know that he was boss and he accepted that.

Each chicken is different and has it's own personality. I think I ran into the perfect storm, a hen that strongly wanted to remain dominant and a cockerel that did not have the self-confidence and self-assurance to step up and take over until he was a lot older than what was typical for my flock. Even then his spirit wasn't that strong. Some mature hens want the male to be worthy of fathering her chicks.

He never really made a good flock master. I think his lack of self-confidence contributed to the flock not being as peaceful as it should have been. I raise several cockerels and try to pick the one I think will best meet my goals. I learned that year to look at his attitude as much as size and feather color. I now want one with more attitude younger.

I don't know how familiar this sounds. I chose to let them fight it out but no blood was drawn. It took them two days of pretty vicious behaviors for them to work it out. Yours drew blood. Mine could have ended in death to one, it would have been the hen. I couldn't stay around full time to make try to control that.

I have tried to have them all together in a big open space

How much room do you have in that big open space? What we might consider a lot of room often isn't. I've seen several posts on this forum where someone thinks they have plenty of room but lack or space is a major problem. One thing that helped me a lot was that the hen had enough room to run away and get away, then avoid him. The less room you have the more these behavior problems are magnified. Even with a lot of room you can still have issues but the outcome is more likely to be good the more room you have.

So what can you do? You can keep trying what you are doing, keep reintroducing them in the hopes that they will one day accept each other. That might eventually work out. Or it might not. Increasing the room they have or improving the quality of the room you have by adding clutter might help. By clutter I mean giving her places to hide under, behind, or above. A way to break line-of-sight.

When I have a problem I try to solve for the good of the flock, not in favor of one individual. It sounds like your flock would be OK with either one, it's just that they are not OK with each other.

Why do you want a rooster? What are your goals with him? The only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs. Anything else is personal preference. Nothing wrong with personal preference, I have a few of those myself, but that is a choice, not need. You have isolated her from the flock while treating her. Were you OK with his behavior with her gone? You have that data point to fall back on when making a decision. Permanently removing one from the flock could mean locking them up securely forever, selling or giving one away, or eating it.

I don't know what the right decision is for you. If you decide you really want a rooster you can try getting rid of him and bringing in another one. I'd suggest bringing in a truly mature one, at least a full year old, a year and a half old would be good. If he has the moxie she may decide "this is a man, not a boy" and accept him. Or you may go through the same thing again.

 

[azygous]

In short, as some of the others have indicated, this is not likely to be workable. When a rooster and dominant hen have that high degree of animosity, it's likely to get worse. Due to the potential for serious injury, I suggest quitting while you're still ahead. Split the flock up or get rid of one of these two.

I have had this situation in my own flock. My junior rooster developed a hateful attitude toward an eight-year old hen. She hated being mated by him and resisted strenuously. One time he tore her scalp off her head. I isolated them from each other after that, but he would still spend time outside her run trying to haze her through the fence.

He would get so worked up with rage at not being able to tear her limb from limb, he would attack the hot wire instead, getting a nasty shock each time, but it only made his rage even worse.

As often happens in chicken world, bobcat ate her, and he's living happily ever after.