Behaviors of Silver Gray Dorkings

[wendy]

Anyone have a rooster that is Silver Gray Dorking? What kind of behavior do they have?

We had a Barred Rock Rooster it started to get mean. Went to attack my child more than once while free ranging. Are all roosters like this?

thanks, Wendy

 

[AK-Bird-brain]

Please don't slap me....... but they act just like chickens!

Sorry I had to do it. They are just like any other rooster. Our boy Duke is the main man (in the coop). He is protective of his girls, and given half a chance will spur you if he thinks your a threat.

This afternoon were planning on butchering are bachlor pen of SGD's, by next week I'll be able to tell you what a SGD tastes like. Just a guess but i'm thinking chicken!

 

[wendy]

Oh, yeah, your to funny AK-Bird-brain

Well my husband wants a Silver Gray Dorking Rooster so bad! I was afraid that a rooster is a rooster any breed they might be. He just thinks because of the short legs and size that one will be okay around our children. Our son was just stepping off the porch when he tried to attack. I was putting clothes up on the line. So our son did nothing to provoke him. This was not the first time he displayed this behavior. He was a HUGE rooster too!

So tell me what they taste like when you fix one for dinner

Like your signature too

Wendy

 

[AK-Bird-brain]

We go by the 3 strikes rule around here,
1st attack might have been by accident,
2nd I might not have been paying attention and he snuck up,
3rd its dinner time.

We try to raise all our birds by hand so they are familiar with us and not leary. But if they do show aggression we push them into the ground to show them they are not the baddest on the block.

My wife swears by snuggling them when they are young and holding them often. She has a little banty roo that thinks he's 10 feet tall but he likes to ride on a shoulder and be petted.

 

[wendy]

Quote:
That is funny one wants to ride on her shoulder. I get a little distracted with 4 kids, youngest two are toddlers. I know I should have handled them more. But all of my red stars and one barred rock let me pick them up and pet them

wendy

 

[Mrs MIA]

LOL!
Yep, I had to do a little intervention with my SGD roo at first. I hold him down, in a pose similar to a submissive hen, until he stops struggling. Then I tightly hold him, talk to him, and carry him around with me while I tend to the girls. It took about a week of this before he realized that he couldn't pull that poop with me.

I think that any roo, if he feels like he or his girls are being bothered, will attempt to peck or flog. Even our little cochin bantam roo tried it with me... it's like having an attack chihuahua.

They all went to Camp Kenmore, and my DH likes to say.

 

[AtRendeAcres]

I have made dinner out of quite a few roos (calm breeds) because they went after kids!!!

any breed can have one/two with a personality defect!

Roos are trying to protect their girls & Kids move fast, hug hard & run around trying to catch them (what is a guy to do)

Brahmas are very kid friendly

they have taken a lot!

Brahmas are very laid back, quite, docile & very easy to handle!


Joanne

 

[Mrs MIA]

Hate to say it, but my light brahmas are my worst offenders...

 

[wendy]

Well thanks for all the info on the SGD, I am not going to mention the rooster. DH can get it if he wants I guess. When he puts his mind to something there is not much changing it

Maybe I can make a deal with him and say that he can have his SGD if I get what animal I want

Wendy

 

[dancingbear]

Not all roos will become aggressive with humans, but it's not a good idea to have small children around a roo unless you're right there, and not busy with anything, so you can stop it if anything happens. A small child could easily be seen as a rival roo, being much closer to "chicken size" than an adult human.

An aggressive roo isn't, in his mind, doing anything wrong. He's following pure instinct, and doing what a roo does, protecting his turf and his flock. There's no thought process behind instinct, it's pure reaction. It's sometimes hard to tell exactly what triggers a behavior, such as an attack. It could be a look, an action, a gesture, a sound, entirely unintentional, but the roo doesn't know that.

Once a roo fixates on people, adult or child, as a threat to the flock, it may or may not be possible to break him of it. Personally, if a roos becomes human aggressive, I just eat him. There are lots of nice gentle roos around, it's not worth the trouble to "train" one. Certainly not worth risking injury to one of your children, or yourself. I eat my excess roos anyway, so it's not like I'm eating a pet. My chickens aren't pets, except for a select few.

In over 15 years of keeping chickens, I've only had one human aggressive roo. I've had some that were mean to the hens, we ate them, too. Most have been sweet. I did recently have one who had displaced my older roo as the boss of the flock, and when my DH or I was carrying the old roo to put him in a separate area, (protective custody) that roo came after us. But he wasn't after us, he was after the other roo. We sold him to a neighbor. He's a perfectly nice roo, but that was a potentially dangerous situation.

Good luck, I hope your next roo proves himself to be nicer to have around.