Getting rid of the rooster...

[Pnoah1]

This is often why they turn mean. Roosters don't have the mental wiring to be good pets, they're livestock. Roosters raised as pets do not have any respect for humans and believe they're dominant over said humans. In the chicken world, subordinate birds groom dominant birds, so all that handling and loving on him when he was younger told him he was dominant. In the chicken world, the dominant bird takes the highest perch, so letting him ride on your shoulder, carrying him, etc shows him he's dominant to the human. It's counter-intuitive, pretty much the opposite of raising say a dog, but they're really different animals and need to be treated differently.

Just fyi in case you get another rooster.

I slightly disagree with this, because the kids we have at our house raised the roosters we own and they show no signs of dominance only among there hens. It is merely to me that you need to show signs of dominance over your rooster less he find you less dominant and okay to attack people.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You’ve been getting some real good advice from some really good people. If you were breeding for show and really needed that rooster’s genetics for your breeding program, you might have a reason to keep that rooster. Since you are obviously not doing that, there is no reason at all to keep a human aggressive rooster. Your hens will do fine without that rooster. Things may be a bit unsettled for a short while as they sort out the new pecking order, but they will quickly adjust. You probably won’t really notice any difference.

The only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs. Everything else is just personal preference. Even if you wanted fertile eggs, you don’t want him to be the father. A human aggressive rooster has certain tendencies that can be passed down to his sons. There are too many good roosters out there to put up with a bad one.

You asked why do they go human aggressive. Who knows? Some roosters are handled and coddled from the time they hatch. Some of them go human aggressive and some don’t. Some roosters are never handled, just raised by a broody hen without much if any human interaction. Some of them go human aggressive and some don’t. Don’t think it’s anything you specifically did. Somehow that rooster has the thought inside his bird brain that the kids and maybe you are either a danger to his girls or a threat to his position as dominant rooster. In either case, he will attack.