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What worked well for me to hold them was once you had them, hold the wings close to their body so they can't flap about. Calmly and gently flip that roo on his back in your lap and keep him there for awhile.Once they are on their backs they tend to settle down. Even if you kept one roo and still only had the 2 hens those girls will be put thru the ringer until you get some backup in there. I learned the hard way about hen to roo ratios going into this a few years back. I started out with 52 chicks from a hatchery. We raised them in the heated garage over winter, come spring we lost over half of them the first few weeks from the stress of the shipping and wound up with about 27 when all was said and done. Once they wrre big and feathered out they started killing each other. Most of them were roos but we were so new to chickens we had no idea why they had been killing each other like that. We figured out later it was because of soo many roos in the bunch, A few of the hens had been pecked to death. It quickly turned into a horrible nightmare. We were fortunate to have found an animal swap they have once a month at the feed store, we took the excess roos and a few hens we didn't care for to the swap and sold them as soon as the tailgate of the truck went down. What a relief that was! A few of the roos we kept back were 1 bantam cochin, 1 golden laced wyandotte roo, and 1 cuckooo marans who was a total NUTCASE. Earl the cuckoo marans was the one who attacked me, not only did he attack me everytime I went outside, he stalked me, dodging behind trees trying to creep up behind me. He would wait for me to bend down to fill the feed pan or something before he came in for the attack. He used my back as a ramp to my head, stood on the back of my neck and shredded my head. A pool noodle wouldn't stop him, I had to take the pitch fork to him...So some can be more difficult then others. Earl went to a new home where he became a nice meal for a family in need.
