HELP Needed...My Rooster REPEATEDLY ATTACKED ME

[Shadrach]

Why would I want to keep a dangerous animal that I had to avoid?

I have no issue coping with and avoiding the black widows and the copperheads in my environment, but I shouldn't have to avoid MY OWN LIVESTOCK.

I am willing to eat my way through as many roosters as necessary until I get one who doesn't see me or my family as a threat to his flock and isn't stupid enough to attack the giant who brings food and water.

I find that incredibly sad both for you and the rooster.
You don't have to kill them. You just need to learn how to cope with them.
I found that eventually those roosters who tended to be defensive and prone to protecting their hens, their hens eggs and any resulting offspring grew up to be wonderful creatures deserving of the respect they demanded.

 

[3KillerBs]

I find that incredibly sad both for you and the rooster.
You don't have to kill them. You just need to learn how to cope with them.
I found that eventually those roosters who tended to be defensive and prone to protecting their hens, their hens eggs and any resulting offspring grew up to be wonderful creatures deserving of the respect they demanded.

I don't ask them to be lap pets.

But I'm not risking an ER visit from being spurred or, even more importantly, one of my grandchildren's eyes for the sake of a bird that's too dumb to know where his food comes from.

 

[NatJ]

I find that incredibly sad both for you and the rooster.
You don't have to kill them.

If I want to eat chicken, that means chickens are going to get killed. It's just a question of which ones.

 

[NatJ]

Well that's my point. It may be the only thing you need a rooster for, especially if you keep them in a run, but I and many many others have, or have had, free range chiickens and a rooster needs to be able to defend his group from competeing males and while not often successful, predators.

So you and I like different kinds of roosters. That's fine-- you raise the kind you like, and I'll raise the kind I like.

My view, albeit unpopular is if you don't want to deal with rooster aggression then don't keep roosters.

Since roughly half of all chickens are male, and you think many people should not keep roosters, what do you think should happen to all of them?

 

[Lizzy733]

If you're eating your chickens, eating their eggs, to be fair they have a pretty legit reason to be fighting you.

My husband has been taking up butchery and sometimes, beef will come in with an odd pattern in the muscle - that meat gets tossed immediately as its no good for eating. The reason? The cow figured out it was going to die before it happened.

Maybe these aggressive roosters aren't as dumb as we make them out to be.

 

[MTKitty]

I've had a bad day, but I will do my utmost to remain patient.

I hope your day got better before it ended.

... Roosters are supposed to be aggressive. It's having some aggression that means they will compete with other roosters and be able to guard their hens and their offspring. What breeding non aggressive roosters, or at least trying to does, is reduces the chances of the natural instincts going forward.

This makes perfect sense against the background of your linked article. Interesting stuff. But that environment in your dissertation is quite different than the one I have my birds in. Our relationship is symbiotic: I provide food, shelter from weather and predators, and health care. The birds provide eggs and the occasional bodily sacrifice.

Their natural instincts are fine. I rely heavily on the chickens recognizing environmental threats such as coyotes, hawks, snowy cold, etc., without me needing to be present in the coop 24/7. I also need the rooster to recognize I am not one of those environmental threats. If we cannot effectively communicate that between us, one of us has to go. And I pay the bills around here. Species-ist? Yup, but that’s the way it goes in my world.

Even large roosters are unlikely to do you any lasting damage when they attack if you wear appropriate clothing and consider carefully if what you do is likely to ellict an aggressive response.

I agree, but why would I waste my time with an animal I have to always be on guard against? As for lasting damage, that depends on the size of the two involved. Children (and quite a few adults) aren’t always aware of how animals communicate. Teach them? Absolutely. Teach them by having an aggressive animal attack them for accidental miscues? Absolutely not.

Breeding any creature for attributes that are mmeant to please humans but in the long term damage the species is just wrong. I don't know how to put it in another way.

Yet, every animal we label domesticated has been selectively bred, to some degree, for human convenience in exchange for levels of care and longevity not normally seen in their wild state.

I understand what you’re saying. I just don’t agree with every aspect of your position.

 

[Regina Larsen]

I wonder if any of you would be kind enough to provide some reputable studies or research on how human aggressive genes in male chickens are passed down a blood line.
I and a few others have had aggressive roosters breed and none of their male offspring showed any signs of human aggression.
There are some actions on the part of the human keeper that are liable to produce an aggressive reaction in cockerels and roosters.
I've dealt briefly with some of them in this article.
Just for the record. I have done my utmost to research for studies that indicate that a human aggressive male chicken will produce human aggressive male offspring. I have yet to find a single study and as far as I can tell, this myth is yet one more that is perpetuated on forums with absolutely no evidence to confirm it.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/understanding-your-rooster.75056/

In general when behaviors are referred to as 'inherited' it relates largely to brain anatomy and function of the sympathetic nervous system. Electrical CNS anatomy, receptor distribution and the stimulus threshold of how the catecholamines (stress hormones) are released with stimuli isnt a personality thing (which is an ethereal sorta thing) but a physiological basis for reactive behaviors.
This will determine an individuals increased tone in the sympathetic (fight/flight) or parasympathetic (relaxation/passivity) and how these two opposing stimuli responses balance themselves out, and how that individual responds to their environment.
Personality and husbandry will of course have an effect; how much positive or negative influence it has versus gene penetration from the physiology i listed above - dayum thats a million shades of who the hell knows how to quantify the odds.

Why no one situation is ever identical if it involves neurobiology. But most of our behaviors ARE neurobiology even if we don't know it. It plays a very large part in every animal's life and from that standpoint can be an inherited set of stress responses and traits. (Or not. Why breeders likely drink
)

 

[User105877]

I think there are two things people need to remember.
1. They are chickens.
2. I'd be pretty embarrassed if I had to go the ER because of a chicken.
Now I know I may do things a little different than most but if a rooster flogs him he is gonna be in about 10x as much pain than I am after the episode. If I ever get my butt whipped by 10lbs of feathers it's time to start living in some
Bubble wrap.

 

[Shadrach]

I hope your day got better before it ended.

It didn't, but thank you anyway.
I had to kill one very sick hen and got an unpleasant open beaked warning peck from one of those aggressive roosters I'm trying to help who needs some medical assistance.
No, I'm not going to kill him.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't know why I get involved in threads such as these really. I guess I hope that even if the participants wont at least try to find an alternnative to pointless killing, perhaps a few who may read the thread but not comment might.

I don't have a problem with killing any creature that I'm going to eat, but killing because I'm scared of a creature, or because I can't control a creature, makes me feel rather stupid and inadequate. After all, according to my species at least, we are the pinical of eveloution but don't have the intelligence to find a solution to a problem that doesn't involve violence and death.

I'll leave the rest of you to it.