Do I need to ship him off?!?! Please help!

[olp_63]

I was just out in our coop checking on the chickens. All of a sudden my Mille Fleur roo jumped on top of my Japanese roo! He used his claws to hold on to the Japanese's back and clamped his beak onto his comb and would not let go! I had to pry him off and grab his beak to get him off!
The roos (and the rest of our bantams) are about 3 months old now, give or take a few weeks. My Mille Fleur has snapped at me a couple of times. But I've mastered the art of grabbing him before he has a chance to strike. I'm very afraid that his behavior will just get worse as he grows. And I am even MORE terrified at the thought of going to school tomorrow and leaving them all alone in the coop/run. Who knows what happens out there when no one is around to referee!
My question is, do I need to get rid of my Mille Fleur roo? I would be heart broken if this was the case! Or could I just keep him seperate all the time? This is only my second time dealing with this level of aggression in my roos...I'm at a loss.

 

[sianara]

Three years ago I ordered 16 bantams. 1/3 of those were mille fleurs d'uccles, 1/3 porcelain d'uccles and 1/3 quail d'anvers. I ended up with 4 females and 9 males (3 d'anvers chicks died). I knew I wanted to keep ONE male so I separated all the males from the hens and over several weeks time I would place 1 rooster at a time with the hens to see how he behaved to them. Out of all those roosters (they were all the d'uccle breed) only ONE was kind to the hens and that's the one I kept.

Unfortunately, to this day he likes to challenge ME when I go into their yard but he is kind to the hens and even the chicks, which was the most important thing to me.

In my experience (I've had 14 roosters over the years) they DO get worse as they age. The very first rooster I had got mean at 5 months old. I couldn't bear to part with him (those were my naive days

) so I sectioned off an area in the coop/yard for him alone. As the days went on he got meaner and meaner. If anyone DARED to walk by his yard he would just run and attack the fence. The thing is that chickens are flock animals and need to be with others. Even though he could see the hens in the coop and the yard he was still alone. I'm sure this didn't help his "attitude" either. I eventually gave him away to someone who was going to free range him. Once he was gone, the hens seemed so much happier and I was relieved. From that point on, whenever I got a mean rooster he was given away PRONTO and so on.

I know it's hard to give away your "baby" but sadly sometimes it's the only way to keep the others safe. I will never put up with having a mean rooster around again.

BTW, the mille fleur WILL kill the japanese if given half a chance!

 

[rooster-red]

Keep them separate.

 

[sianara]

rooster-red,

very good info on your website about how to deal with aggressive roosters!

 

[cthrash1]

My Mille Fleur roo is a coward but he is such a gentleman to his girls(He has two soon to have 3). A few days ago he accidentally on purpose got knocked off the gate between the pens by my BTB Dutch "Little Man" who proceeded to attack him as they hit the ground....The poor Millie didn't have a chance and was trying so hard to get away so I had to rescue him and place him back in his pen. He looked so relieved. Little Man doesn't bother him otherwise, he must've thought the Millie was after his flock.

 

[olp_63]

Quote:
Wow, your page on rooster aggression is great! It really helped me! And yes, I do plan to keep him separate from the others.

thanks! ---Whitney

 

[Omran]

Quote:
Wow, your page on rooster aggression is great! It really helped me! And yes, I do plan to keep him separate from the others.

thanks! ---Whitney

I had one rooster who started to be agressive and best thing I did,was getting red of him,I am really thinking about getting red of the other one I have and get one every year just for breeding like the Farmers when they get the bulls for a period of time only,I think it is less stress on the hens.