Has anyone ever actually succeeded in retraining an aggressive rooster?

[azygous]

Ky will be back to the thread as soon as his friend gets his laptop fixed.

Meanwhile, I can coach you.

You need to work daily with both your roo and the neurotic silkie. Begin each session, and I'd do it at least twice a day and more if possible, by picking up and holding the bantam roo. Rule One: Never run away from a rooster! Stand your ground. Dress your daughter in long denim pants and rubber boots so she won't get hurt. But she needs to stand her ground!

Pick up the roo in the football hold and carry him around, or just sit with him quietly in your lap for fifteen minutes or longer. As Ky likes to do when he's training a tyrant, watch a movie together! He will not poop on you.

Right after doing that, put him back in the pen, and approach the silkie with some food or a treat in your hand. Hold it out to her and wait for her to come eat it from your hand. Don't toss it to her. Make her eat from your hand!

When I was training my neurotic roo, he only got his scratch grain ration and treats each day if he ate them from my hand. After a week or so, when your silkie can eat from your hand calmly, slowing touch her gently as she eats. Do that for a few days, then graduate to petting her as she eats.

We'll keep this thread going and coach you through the process. Keep reporting in so we can find the thread on the front page. Ky will be back with stories about his wild boys he's tamed that will help everyone here.

 

[appps]

Thank you! Really appreciate your help!!
Just thought Id share my Rooster too so you can see who we are talking about

I should also explain the silkie and what I mean by neurotic . She started her time with us on antibiotics so used to get held for them twice a day. I would have thought that would have made her quiet but it seems to have had the opposite effect.

She is the only silkie in the pen and seems to sit well and truley at the bottom of the social ladder .

When the roo was first getting his hormones on he made her life hell constantly chasing and pecking her and was quite relentless about it. Even to the point he would bale her up in the coop and attack her if she tried to come out.

She now follows him round like a shadow when she is with them and is too scared to move without him. She will sit in the house cackling at the top of her voice if she can't see them but won't just stick her head out and go for a wander to find them. The roo will come and get her which is what sort of happened yesterday but he came round the corner and spotted her cackling and my daughter standing there and I think decided my daughter was causing it.

She only spends part of her time with the group and the rest by herself in the coop

Her time with the group seems to have increased lately but when she is with them she seems to do it as an outsider hanging round wanting to fit in nervous feel about it.

Both my husband and I noticed yesterday that number 3 in the pecking order (and also newly the friendliest pullet, the more we hold the roo the more she follows me everywhere)) kept having a go at her yesterday which is new. Normally the pullets pretty much ignore her.

So we say neurotic but I think she is just constantly scared silly poor thing. I suspect she is stressed out of her brain.

I've been considering getting another silkie pullet so she isn't so alone and excluded?

Oh and my daughter used to pat her in her bed every night when she would lock them up, which she tolerated fine, but then the roo started to get cranky when she did and peck her hand which was the very start of the roo attacking her. (They still all sleep in a silkie pile together but thinking ill build the other three a roost)

 

[azygous]

What a handsome little devil! Stunning good looks, actually. What breed is he? I don't think I've ever seen one like him.

You're not going to be able to do anything about the pecking order, I'm afraid. All of us have a "victim" who gets shabby treatment from the others, and we want to fix it. But Chicken World is just that - their world. They organize it, and each one learns their place in it.

The most we can hope to do is to shake up the pecking order by shifting the members in and out by segregating a victim or a bully. I've done this with the lowest member, giving her a nice two or three week rest from the stress of being with the others, and when she returned, she actually had developed more confidence and wasn't nearly the victim she was before. That might be an option, but I like the idea of getting another silkie. Be forewarned, she will look at the newcomer and probably peck her on the head and chase her around, glad to have someone below her in the pecking order.

But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, concentrate on your little tyrant. Does he have a name?

 

[clucksbc]

What i would say......it is good to pick up so it will be friendly and know you...but i have found with roosters...the most important thing is to let it know you are boss...don't backdown to the behaviour, stand up to it...and chances are it won't do it again for a while...
your roo is just too cute...
ok it is a silkie too..i know silkie hens have been a bit buying before they got down to laying..

 

[appps]

Thanks, I'm not positive of breed but he is frizzle x silkie but not sure if you would call him a sizzle because he hasn't got a silkie comb. Oh and his name is Ed

Clucksbc
Thanks for the input re picking him up. I'm not real good at that yet I'm afraid though it always seems to end with me chasing him. He seems to guess my intentions lol

 

[azygous]

Ed is a cutie. Soon he'll be lovable. And harmless.

A thought occurred to me about getting your silkie companionship. Introducing an adult silkie to her would probably produce mixed results. However, since silkies are known to be compulsive mums, you might have better luck finding a couple, three baby chicks and letting her raise them. You may argue that you don't want that many silkies, but chicks need to be in a "unit", and they'll fair better in the pecking order as a multiple. This is one reason your silkie is having social problems.

Since silkies don't roost, you could make a safe corner for the "new family", and it could become the silkie roosting "pile" as they reach adulthood.

 

[cyw iar]

I will be watching this thread with great interest; I hope you're all able to keep going, and posting about the coaching! Our rooster doesn't seem to be aggressive yet, but we also don't (yet) handle any of our birds.

I've read through Ky's blog and it was very informative. I hope to start with our birds as the evenings get longer (we both work during the day!), and there's more time for training before they roost for the night.

 

[appps]

I had actually thought about getting her chicks to raise but had been thinking along the lines of some astralorps so we got some normal size eggs eventually too.

Silkie chicks is a good idea but it worries me I don't know if I can buy them sexed. Gum tree (like your Craig's list) is full of silkie rooster to free home adds locally so were I to end up with another boy I'd have problems. I'm smack dab in the middle of suburbia where I live. I might be getting away with one rooster, two would be pushing my luck lol

 

[appps]

H

I will be watching this thread with great interest; I hope you're all able to keep going, and posting about the coaching! Our rooster doesn't seem to be aggressive yet, but we also don't (yet) handle any of our birds.

I've read through Ky's blog and it was very informative. I hope to start with our birds as the evenings get longer (we both work during the day!), and there's more time for training before they roost for the night.

How old is yours? We first started seeing little signs just on 5 months. And he used to be the one that sat on my daughters lap the most as a chick.

 

[cyw iar]

H
How old is yours? We first started seeing little signs just on 5 months. And he used to be the one that sat on my daughters lap the most as a chick.

He's just over 6 months; the flock all hatched end of May last year. I expect if he's going to start getting aggressive, it should be any time now.