Hens beating up Rooster

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Vozdor

Vozdor

Hatching
6 Years
Jun 11, 2013
9
1
7
North Carolina
I'm new to the chicken world. Had a friend that didn't want his hens anymore, so I took them off his hands. It was 4 RIR and 5 Leghorns. They have been together since they were little. They get along great. I received a huge RIR rooster the other day, and he gets ganged up on by all the hens. He is full sized and I was hoping he will become the big dog in the house. But the hens have other ideas. One on One he wins, but when he starts fighting with one and showing his manhood, the other hens come along and defend the hen getting beat up, and the rooster runs away. Now he lives in the corner and if he so much as moves, the hens put him back in the corner. Normal for a new member to come into the family?? Or will he figure out he's the big man on campus and beat everyone up and take his role as a rooster??
 
you have to introduce them slowly.Take the rooster out of the main pen and put him in a cage where the hens can see him but not get to him.keep them like that for about a week,then maybe add a hen or 2 to his pen and see how that gos..
when you do finally add him to the main pen,do it at night when everyones sleeping.
 
Do you have a means to house birds separately?
If so, put the roo there with 1 or 2 hens.
Better yet put the roo with 1 or 2 in the main coop and separate the bully hens, reintroducing one by one.
 
ChickenCanoe, I built two coops. I was going to separate the leghorns and the RIRs. I'll put the rooster in the bigger one and introuduce and have him in there with the little weaker "not so tuff" chickens. The rest with the bully hens, I'll put in the other one and after about a week, I'll put the less weaker ones from the other pen with the Rooster and keep adding that way. I'll leave the bully hens last so when they do get back with the rooster, they will be down a peg or two hopefully. Any thoughts to that?? Or just keep the rooster by himself like you were saying NY Mason?
 
Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan
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Your plan sounds fine.
 
I think the plan sounds good. And bless you for building 2 coops. One always needs another place to house birds for quarantine, injuries, illness and broodiness.
I don't know which are your meanest but my thoughts are to put the roo with the leghorns first and reintroduce the rirs one at a time. They're usually the worst on other breeds. That way the leghorns will be his girls when the RIRs come back.
 
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A large part of me wants to cheer on the girls for turning the tables on a roo, especially a BIG one.
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But I was bullied a lot for most of my school yearss and know how that feels too. If he were a new hen, they probably would have beaten her up too.
 
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.
 

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