Aggressive rooster

[KatieRice]

Hi, I've had my chickens for almost a year (my first flock). We have one rooster and 8 hens. We've had our rooster since he was 2 weeks old. He always kind of ignored us but a few months ago, he started acting aggressive toward both me and my fiancé (unpredictably). I know that is typical for roosters, but not great for us.

One of our hens also has a wing that hangs which doesn't bother her but makes her walk a little slower. He seems to be "pursuing" her more than the other girls, likely because she's easy to catch. All of the girls seem stressed out when he's around.

I don't want to cull him, so I'm wondering what options I have. Or maybe culling is the best choice. Any opinions?

 

[Poultry parent]

The best thing to do is to either cull, or re-home him

 

[bobbi-j]

Hi, I've had my chickens for almost a year (my first flock). We have one rooster and 8 hens. We've had our rooster since he was 2 weeks old. He always kind of ignored us but a few months ago, he started acting aggressive toward both me and my fiancé (unpredictably). I know that is typical for roosters, but not great for us.

One of our hens also has a wing that hangs which doesn't bother her but makes her walk a little slower. He seems to be "pursuing" her more than the other girls, likely because she's easy to catch. All of the girls seem stressed out when he's around.

I don't want to cull him, so I'm wondering what options I have. Or maybe culling is the best choice. Any opinions?

Well, you have to decide how much you want to put up with when he starts out and out attacking you, and how much stress you want to put on your hens.

Your options are:
1. Keep him, don't do anything with him and take your chances on being attacked daily and stressing your hens.

2. Look up one of the many, many threads on taming a rooster or teaching him to respect you (I would recommend Beekissed's methods) and still having stressed out hens.

3. Cull him. That does not necessarily mean "kill" him. To "cull" simply means to remove from the flock. Your choice on what method you use.

His random aggressiveness IMO is not "typical" for roosters. It's typical for poorly behaved roosters, but there are lots of good roosters out there, too. I think a lot of it is how their people interact with them from the time they're little. If you move with purpose around them, letting them know that you are the boss, I think they are more well-mannered.

He may be going after your hen with the funky wing because of her wing. He senses a weakness and it's his instinct to remove a weaker bird from his flock. You may want to take that into consideration, too. Do you want her to be able to have some peace in her life, or to be constantly harassed by him?

 

[KatieRice]

Thanks poultryparent and bobbi-j. I do blame myself a lot for this behavior because I held him a lot as a chick but as he got bigger I wasn't as affectionate. Also, when he first started testing his boundaries, I would shy away instead of showing him who's boss. I don't think I have the patience for training him but I will post him on our local Facebook page and see if anyone is interested in keeping him. Thanks for the advice.