Attacking Rooster! Help!

[jadekaelyne]

So I started taking care of the rooster and chickens to help out and I had no problems with him. Everything was great. I just went to go feed the chickens and I found the rooster laying on the ground dead. I have no idea what happened. Saturday I was holding him and letting my cousin pet him, and he was making weird gargly noises like when someone is gargling water or mouth wash. I wasn't too sure if this was normal or not, but my grandparents didn't say anything about it. Is that a sign that he was sick and should we get the other hens checked or move them? I don't want to lose any more chickens. We had one hen die before the rooster about a month ago, and it was also sudden. I just feel like something is wrong here, maybe thats just me. If anyone knows if the gargly noises are normal please let me know. I haven't heard any of the hens make that noise, but I just want to make sure he wasn't sick and if he was, should we move the chickens to a new area?

 

[FireTigeris]

I have one extra rooster who's respectful of humans and is allowed to free range with my child, he's a Maran* Jersey Giant cross -

But I'm in Jacksonville Fl

Check out the symptoms to 'upper respiratory' or CRD ?... Um sorry I forget...

 

[marmo66]

I have the same problem. We have had several different breeds and the rooster has attacked at different times. Roosters are very protective of their hens and feel we are sometimes a threat. I have hit them with an old broom stick, pushing them in the chest until they back off. Now I simply carry the stick with me putting it down long enough to gather the eggs or feed and watering them. If the rooster is outside I shut him out so he can't enter the coop. The long stick is the only thing that has worked for me. Someone stated to start at a young age and start picking them up and petting them. I tried this and it didn't help. Guess their instincts just take over when they get so big.

 

[mskursh]

we removed our roosters once they were 3 or 4 weeks from the rest of the hens and gave them back to the guy we got our chickens from. he lets them and the other roosters sort out who lives, who dies but said that keeping them from the hens and then adding one later on in the year will keep the rooster from being treated as pets by the kids and being REALLY protective of the hens. well one slipped through the purge but we just kept him anyways. well he started attacking the girls and my wife so i thought i could fix him. when he would come after the girls, i would kick him. he'd come back, kick again. but finally he would attack my wife and she finally was like get rid of him. We took him out and one of his brothers made short work out of him. There are 4 brothers who i guess have been fighting with each other since i dropped them off. SO...we just got one of them now and we've had him for 8 months and we've had tons of kids over and they naturally want to see the chickens and he hasn't even sniffed wanting to attack anyone. his spurs are a good inch and a half too so i'm happy about that!

TLDR version - get a new rooster.