Quote: Healthy masculinity is not shown by beating females. Your hens are in the right about it. Have they been raised with a rooster? If not, I'd reintroduce them more gradually and possibly one-on-one as people have suggested. Give him time to 'woo' them. I've always taken a week to introduce new roosters, and I put a hen or two in with them and give him treats to feed to them. A good rooster won't make a single sexual move until he's sure they're sure he's a good rooster; otherwise this rejection happens and it can be permanent. Chickens too form strong opinions about one another they may keep for life.
I would make an allowance for this aberration if I knew he'd been raised minus females, or they raised minus roosters. If he is familiar with females and still attacks, I'd cull. I've brought in many roosters from many breeds, never has one who is familiar with hens offered them violence. It's utterly unacceptable to me, but then so is baby-killed by hens or roosters, which other people put up with because they think it's inherited because it's natural to the species in the wild. No, it's not, really, because in the wild, the only chicks a rooster or hen sees are their own or their immediate family group; killing chicks is a problem caused by artificial rearing which is easily overcome by not breeding killers. (A rooster may have a few hens who brood and rear chicks together, so it's not normal for farmyard hens to kill other's babies either).
A healthy mature rooster is automatically placed in the rooster's social position. A rooster NEVER has to fight hens to get that! It's not his job to be dominant over every other chicken; it's his job to be dominant over every rooster and upstart cockerel he is able to dominate. At no point in time should you ever see a rooster fighting hens, unless A: he was raised without hens, or they without roosters, or B) he's sick or otherwise very unfit to breed.
Maybe the hens are trying to put him in his place because he's stepping in their territory as hens; despite what some people think, hens have a pecking order that is gender specific and a rooster does not make it all vanish when he arrives. There are separate roles for male and female and he's stepped over the line. There will be at least three dominant hens, each lower than the one before, and these will remain dominant over the other hens regardless of his presence. You may be able to rectify this situation, but it may be too late. All the best, please let us know how it goes.
