Help, my rooster attacks!

[bobbi-j]

I know that when you process a chicken, you will find a sharp protrusion on the wing tip, Bone, claw, whatever - it's there. I've never tried to find out if I can feel it poking through the feathers on my live chickens or not. But - whether they have claws on their wings or not, they DO grow spurs. Spurs that are hard, sharp, and WILL cause injury! What your rooster is doing to your child is called flogging. Flogging will very likely lead to your child being spurred. A rooster will jump up to cut with its spurs. Now, think of how tall your child is, and the size of your rooster. It would take no effort for that rooster to injure your child's face, possibly doing permanent damage. Frankly, I would not let my child be with the chickens until the rooster is gone.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Most chickens don't have anything significant there but some have a variety of additions. Sometimes that bone tip is sheathed by keratin spurs or claws. They can flog with that too. The vagaries of genetics, as usual.
Quote: True; however I would just like to add, for the nasty-rooster owner's benefit, that from my experience, it doesn't matter how tall you are. I am fairly tall, well over five foot, and have had a cockerel leap from a standstill all the way up to my face; no run up, did not flap his wings once to get up there, and I am sure that if I was over six foot tall he could have also reached my face without trouble. Only my automatic reflex saved my eyes as he attacked from behind and slightly to the side, as most of them do. Just suddenly and silently appeared right over my shoulder coming at my eyes. I backhanded him away, more of a twitch/flinch reaction than a deliberate blow, and he fluttered down only to spring back up instantly at my face, again without a single flap of the wings. He was not at his adult strength or size, had never been abused, was hand reared and socialized and so forth; he just came from nasty stock kept and bred by a person who tolerated her pet chihuahua biting her children. That alone should have been a warning to me.

Another of my cockerels, a bantam mix with unremarkable (normal) wings, has leaped from a standstill when frightened and flown almost vertically up for about 100 feet before flying horizontally for over a kilometer. Not all chickens are as earthbound and flightless as some people think; if I had a dollar for every time I hear "well, he's only tiny so he can only get my ankles so I don't mind"... In that case the only reason he goes for the ankles is choice, not lack of ability to go for the face, and a decent rooster spur in the tendon has crippled many an adult for life, never mind a defenseless child.

 

[AmericanMom]

Had a Roo several years ago that would only attack my daughter and I... I was dumb and just thought if I didnt turn my back or if I carried a stick I would be fine.. One day I was backing out of the gate, keeping my eyes on him when I realized I couldnt find the latch, I turned my back for one second so I could see it and WHOOSh... I dodged just in time, all I saw was his spurs inches from my face. I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got seriously hurt, he had a quick passing and was in the stew pot a few days later. I decided then and there that never would I have an animal I am afraid of.
Our chickens free range our acre but at night know where to go to roost, they also have a ready supply of food and water at their disposal, just like with any animal that has been raised by humans they become dependant on us, it is very immature and selfish to take an animal out and just let it go to the wild. We have had to cull a few chickens, a couple rabbits and a sweet dog that we had for 13 years. its never easy but its done respectfully.