Aggressive Rooster

[Peeps61]

I think it's natural for them to be frightened if they feel they are trapped. If that's the only time he does it and you know he will, then I'd say he's OK.

Of course, my only roo was an Ameraucana, and he wasn't really mean, but he would come after me sometimes. A predator got him earlier this year and I've been very happy without a roo since. Got lucky and none of the chicks I bought in July were roos - all pullets!

 

[chooks4life]

Now i have a similar question to everyones... my roo isnt aggressive unless hes cornered. i can approach him in the yard, i can take the hens out of the coop, i can be in the coop with everyone working, but if hes backed into a corner, he starts jumping and puffing up. and i mean like within a foot of me and no way around. normally he will run if he has the chance. he runs from kids, our dog, even our half blind cat. Wyatts a big boy, hes a jersey giant australorp mix. my chickens free range and he has never shown any aggresion towards humans while out. Its just if hes cornered in the house. we arent afraid of him. Hes been the only roo my kids can handle regularly in the yard. Hes our 3rd roo... #1 wouldnt come when called or go in at night. He got eaten by something. #2 was a huge nasty bugger who lasted 3 days before he took off. He spurred hubby the first day. we found his carcass stuffed in the bean field a few weeks later. (We have mink around here) would that be a reasonalble rooster response? Hes 5 mos old now. id like to think thats just the "oh crap im stuck" response, but our hens do the submissive squat and our other roos werent much to go on obviously. any ideas? He does his job, we havnt lost a chicken to anything but old age sine he came along, and hes gentle with the ladies if you catch my drift. I have no hesitations about culling a bastardy chicken, but this guy im just not sure its actual human aggression more than fear response?

Also, you say 'backed into a corner' --- you mean he doesn't turn away from you? If he remains facing you at all times, that's an issue, it indicates he perceives you as an opponent. Needless to say, that only ends one way.

I've not had one who does what you're describing and I'm reserving judgment until I have a better idea of what he's doing. It doesn't sound good, but if he's not actually attacking you, you could try managing it, for example by not cornering him at all, but then again that could sound like the beginning of developing a strain that can't be handled... One has to question the value in breeding an animal that is not 100%. Sure, he's overall good, only a little bit off when cornered, but being handled is part of every average chook's life, and necessary at that; if you propagate lines that respond aggressively or with extreme distress to being cornered, you're going to be 'making your own bed' if you know what I mean.

I tested for years before I realized I had to cull harder, sooner, for milder faults. They always get worse it seems. Behavioral faults, if at all present, even in the mildest forms of expression, seem to only exponentially increase with every generation from that original flawed bird.

To me this sounds like he's a hair-trigger sort, a fair-weather type, okay when things are okay but liable to react excessively strongly to things not being okay... Those sorts of animals' minds remain on a razor-edge, very close to the abyss of unreasoning terror, easily pushed into complete freak-outs by stimuli that doesn't even frighten their average counterpart. Best to watch carefully with that mindset, it can easily become rapidly dangerous without any obvious warning.

Some behavioralists/ ethologists doggedly insist that the trigger must be external, implying all the behaviors observable are rationally based and therefore open to modification, but that isn't taking into account perceived triggers which don't actually exist externally, such as neuroses, and physical causes like for example a genetic predisposition to insufficient calcium in the sheathing of the nerves, causing overreactions, etc.
Best wishes.

 

[mylittlehippie]

I hatched my first roo about 5 months ago now and I decided to keep him to protect my hens. He was handled a lot as a chick and was always really sweet. However in the last month he has started attacking anyone when they come into the run especially when they go to collect the eggs. So far it hasn't been anything bad since he is young. Nothing more than charging and biting at your feet. The thing is I worry that it will get worse. I have kids that are used to caring for the chickens with me and they like to interact with them. I do not want them getting hurt. I also do not want to have to deal with being attacked every time i enter the run. I have read some of the suggestions on here on how to "train" him. I have kicked him when he attacks my feet and I can use a broom or get more forceful if i need to. I am wondering though, what are the chances that he will mellow out or get worse? i know that roos can be hit or miss sometimes with aggression and i just want to make the best decision for my family. He is a bantam cochin so I am not too worried about him doing any serious damage at least not yet but I don't want to miss a window to fix this. Thanks guys!

 

[scooter147]

In my 40 plus years of experience he will get worse.
Being a bantam the "damage" maybe less than a standard breed, HOWEVER, it doesn't take much to put out an eye. I say error on the side of caution and get rid of him or don't let the kids in coop/run.

For the record I've found easter eggers to be the most aggressive. I always buy easter egger chicks ever spring (usually around 10) and almost always end up with a rooster. Each time I want to try and keep him but so every one has been invited to a chicken and dumpling dinner. I just culled the one I got this spring last week. I called him Mike Tyson, he and I went around and around for about a month before I had time to send him to freezer camp. He went for my face and that was the last straw I culled him that day.

 

[Peeps61]

I had a beautiful EE rooster, but he was mean as the devil. After he spurred me, my husband went out and culled him. My other EE rooster was mean too, but taken by a hawk before he got too aggressive, thus taking care of the problem.

 

[chooks4life]

I hatched my first roo about 5 months ago now and I decided to keep him to protect my hens. He was handled a lot as a chick and was always really sweet. However in the last month he has started attacking anyone when they come into the run especially when they go to collect the eggs. So far it hasn't been anything bad since he is young. Nothing more than charging and biting at your feet. The thing is I worry that it will get worse. I have kids that are used to caring for the chickens with me and they like to interact with them. I do not want them getting hurt. I also do not want to have to deal with being attacked every time i enter the run. I have read some of the suggestions on here on how to "train" him. I have kicked him when he attacks my feet and I can use a broom or get more forceful if i need to. I am wondering though, what are the chances that he will mellow out or get worse? i know that roos can be hit or miss sometimes with aggression and i just want to make the best decision for my family. He is a bantam cochin so I am not too worried about him doing any serious damage at least not yet but I don't want to miss a window to fix this. Thanks guys!

X2 what scooter147 said, sorry. Never seen a nasty one get better, never seen a truly good one go nasty (but have seen mildly 'off' ones, with only vaguely suspicious behavior, just get worse... Learned to cull against even mildly bad signs because of that. They never went the other way and turned out alright, and mildly 'off' hens and roosters tend to produce offspring that only enlarge upon the traits their parents showed glimpses of. If you bred this one yourself, I'd bet with some hindsight you would soon spot the behavioral trends that showed you were heading towards breeding this sort of male. His mentality did not spontaneously occur in a vacuum, he inherited a large part of it).

If he were a human, he'd be basically around 12 years old at the moment, tops, still very much a juvenile, and yet he's full-on attacking you, charging and trying to beat you into submission --- the younger they start the worse they get, and the faster too, almost as a rule. It's very abnormal for any chook that age to be attacking anything other than food seriously, that's still the age of play and non-serious scuffles.

He's not mentally right in the head to be doing what he's doing. Your chances of reasoning with an unreasonable animal are nil. (Training him out of it is reliant on reasoning, basically, i.e. cause and effect, so if he attacks you, he gets whacked, or some other negative consequence, more or less).

Even when it's more seemingly rational violent behavior from an adult rooster, i.e. only attacking when someone handles 'his' hens, the chances of altering it are about nil as well. Only a very, very few people reckon they've had any success for longer than a few months... Nobody really claims permanent success.

Even if you do get that short-term maintenance-intensive management happening, as a rule it seems it must be ongoing, and his offspring, and theirs, and theirs in turn, and so on, will almost certainly all need the very same management. How much time of your day/life are you prepared to devote to managing this issue while holding out for enough generations to eradicate the trait? Also, no guarantees that will happen either, all you'd likely do is develop a strain that must be managed and can never trusted. If the underlying mentality that drives him to assault you remains intact then it will still be passed on with each generation. Good luck removing the mentality without removing the head, haven't seen that done with violent roosters, myself. It's not like countless people haven't tried.

I'd cull, he's a discredit to his breed. The breed would not have a reputation for good temperaments if people kept breeding ones like him, but some are, case in point, and it's shaming the whole breed. Those that established the breed's fine reputation would be rolling in their graves over some of the scummy mentalities that are being bred on.

If you've already resorted to kicking him and it's not gained respect, you can smash his tiny bones and it won't dissuade him. You really may as well kill him. Not to mention that it can be very damaging for children to see violence used on an animal, and can be costly if someone reports it. I've never found any violent means of managing animals were ever worth the doing. Trauma all round. Just cull the vicious ones and in so doing clear some room for the better ones, I vote.

Besides, as far as protecting your hens goes, chances are he'll never be anything more than a self-important ornament, most roosters couldn't protect hens or even themselves against anything significant... Nice thought, but the reality is often a sad joke with lots of posturing culminating in pointless death. People telling stories about their 'hero roosters' are talking almost exclusively about stupid males that killed themselves attacking a predator they couldn't possibly defeat, which usually goes on to kill the hens as well anyway. Stylish death! ...Too bad about the whole dying thing though, lol.

It's mostly an overblown idealized fantasy, unfortunately. Decent flock protection is based on your cages and other animals like livestock guardian dogs, not roosters, especially not bantam roosters.

He's already shown he has no clue what a real threat is. 'Man-fighting' is not reliably correlated to decent flock-guarding at all, though the more over-aggressive he is, the more likely he is to become one of those 'hero roos' that dies a stupid death 'defending' against a predator he should have had the sense to flee from. Plenty of hens have the same over-aggressive mentalities, but we laugh at them, only rarely calling them 'heroes' --- the end result is a dead chook either way in most cases, only rarely do they successfully see off a predator without getting hurt themselves. The most aggressive chooks I ever had were always the dumbest, without any exceptions, and never produced offspring worth keeping. Just trouble for as many generations as I bothered to keep.

Best wishes.

 

[mylittlehippie]

Thanks guys. I was kind of leaning that way too. I hatched him with my Cochin hen who is the sweetest thing ever. However he came from another breeder not my lines. And i do not want to taint my wonderful hen with him if his successors will be worse!

 

[chooks4life]

Thanks guys. I was kind of leaning that way too. I hatched him with my Cochin hen who is the sweetest thing ever. However he came from another breeder not my lines. And i do not want to taint my wonderful hen with him if his successors will be worse!

Yes! X2, this.

I sometimes think I'm the only one who feels that way, lol, just seems wrong to let a good hen's lineage be tainted by crossing it with an inferior rooster. It is wrong, I guess, it's letting bad bloodlines mingle with better ones and drag them down to its level, possibly ending in eradication of those better bloodlines. Always a bit sad when people decide to keep an attack-roo caged for the rest of its life rather than cull it, and waste hens on him that will never get to breed because someone prefers to keep an animal that will never be worth the resources going into it, and they're the designated entertainment/inmates.

Best wishes.

 

[lazy gardener]

In defense of EE roos, there are some good ones out there. My boy is quite the gentleman. The one and only time he even remotely considered human aggression was when he chased after my 8 y.o. when she squealed. The 8 y.o. as well as myself engaged in some rooster training that very day, which only amounted to herding him around the yard, and not letting him have any treats (again, by herding him) until after the girls were done with them. He has been a perfect gentleman ever since. That being said, no matter how nice the roo is, I think it's only prudent to be on guard when ever children are involved. I just love the way he seems to always have something to say. He seems to always be chuckling at a private joke.

 

[Chickie Mama]

You are going to hear from everyone "cull" it. I have had the same problem and I was a bit offended by how quick people were to say "cull him!" but now that I've had chickens and roosters for several years, I understand. We have a very mean rooster. Attacks me just about every time I get too close. He is surprisingly strong and draws blood if I'm not careful (he is a Silkie). We do not have children, so he has been permitted to stay. My chickens free range around our farm so I have a walking stick I carry- that has been very helpful. Why keep him at all? He is a great Rooster. He does his job well. None of his girls have ever been taken by a predator (fox etc). Some of my other roosters have not been so attentive.

He was one of my first chickens. He was hand raised from a chick and I tried everything people recommended to tame him, but bottom line- some roosters are just really mean. It is not their fault. It is nothing you did wrong. It is just who they are. I have also had some very nice roosters too. Never gave me a second look. The breed has a lot to do with it. My Rhode Island Red/Brahma mix and Jersey Giant have been wonderful.

So, for your child's safety, you really should get rid of the rooster. Weather you decide to cull it, give it away, or build him his own run that your children can not enter- something needs to be done. You wont change the rooster's behavior. If this is the first time he has shown any aggression, it just means he will increase the behavior. Curtain times of the year are worse than others, but the risk is always there. I'm sorry to join the "cull him" bandwagon, but I do believe it is the right thing to do for your family.

Best of luck!
~Emily