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The bulk of my experience involves American game chickens. My family has kept them for generations (ours not birds) and until recently we had more roosters (cocks and stags) than many people have birds in total within a flock. Most of our adult males were confined individually in some sort of coop. Other males were confined with a small number of hens in larger coops or structures that looked like minature hen houses. Yet another group of males were individually walked (kept with small groups of hens with purpose breeding to produce relatively large number of offspring under free range conditions) on barnyrds all over county. Most walks were owned by folks other than ourselves. Regardless of how our game roosters were kept, they at some point had regular, sometimes daily, contact with keeper. We did not tolerate roosters that attacked people as these birds are tad bit more capable of causing damage than typical production breeds. They can easily and repeatedly fly up into face of 6'4" man if so inclined. When walked they came into contact with adults and children at those locations. Aggressive roosters were potentially bad for public relations. All said and done, with our games, attacks directed at people by roosters were very infrequent and if memory serves were directed more at brother and I for trying to catch bitties. Our game roosters were also very inclined to be model parents, much more so than most production breeds, but were not suicidal in protection of flock.
We (grandmother actually) also kept a couple production breeds for purpose of producing hatching eggs for a commercial hatchery. They were a very different story. Roosters were kept to be breeding machines. Best breeders covered (mated) many hens daily and those birds seemed to be ramped up on hormones all the time. They did not get individual attention and aggressiveness I suspect was inadvertantly selected for as it may have been strongly related to covering hens. Roosters may also have been selected for competing abilities in a breeding flock having multiple roosters. It was those roosters we had to watch out for, especially when kept individually as part of barnyard flock as we did with some. It was those roosters that seemed adept at going after those, such as my younger cousins with less chicken experience, that were scared of them..
Multiple factors involved and can involve genetics and environment that promote or inhibit rooster aggression towards people. Culling immediately for aggression is to be incouraged but examination of how we might influence aggression through husbandry also in order.
The bulk of my experience involves American game chickens. My family has kept them for generations (ours not birds) and until recently we had more roosters (cocks and stags) than many people have birds in total within a flock. Most of our adult males were confined individually in some sort of coop. Other males were confined with a small number of hens in larger coops or structures that looked like minature hen houses. Yet another group of males were individually walked (kept with small groups of hens with purpose breeding to produce relatively large number of offspring under free range conditions) on barnyrds all over county. Most walks were owned by folks other than ourselves. Regardless of how our game roosters were kept, they at some point had regular, sometimes daily, contact with keeper. We did not tolerate roosters that attacked people as these birds are tad bit more capable of causing damage than typical production breeds. They can easily and repeatedly fly up into face of 6'4" man if so inclined. When walked they came into contact with adults and children at those locations. Aggressive roosters were potentially bad for public relations. All said and done, with our games, attacks directed at people by roosters were very infrequent and if memory serves were directed more at brother and I for trying to catch bitties. Our game roosters were also very inclined to be model parents, much more so than most production breeds, but were not suicidal in protection of flock.
We (grandmother actually) also kept a couple production breeds for purpose of producing hatching eggs for a commercial hatchery. They were a very different story. Roosters were kept to be breeding machines. Best breeders covered (mated) many hens daily and those birds seemed to be ramped up on hormones all the time. They did not get individual attention and aggressiveness I suspect was inadvertantly selected for as it may have been strongly related to covering hens. Roosters may also have been selected for competing abilities in a breeding flock having multiple roosters. It was those roosters we had to watch out for, especially when kept individually as part of barnyard flock as we did with some. It was those roosters that seemed adept at going after those, such as my younger cousins with less chicken experience, that were scared of them..
Multiple factors involved and can involve genetics and environment that promote or inhibit rooster aggression towards people. Culling immediately for aggression is to be incouraged but examination of how we might influence aggression through husbandry also in order.
