How do I exorcise my rooster?

[Caitlin342]

oh my gosh!! i had no idea that hand raising a roo would cause them to be aggressive! I have a bantam silkie roo (you don't know they are roosters until they are older) and he was the only chick in the flock and he came down with pox... this meant he has basically been my little buddy because being the only baby in the flock that was sick all of the other girls were really mean to him. Majority of the girls are also double his size so he has never been a dominant rooster. They have a pretty big fenced in area that they stay in so they would stop ruining the landscape and my garden but if I go outside to do garden work i take him out with me and he kind of follows me around and seems to love being held and pet. He started crowing a few months ago but it is very quiet and he has been mounting some of the smaller hens for about a month and a half... i don't want my little boy to become mean! does this always happens, should i stop holding him and taking him out?

 

[Caitlin342]

oh and ps... he only has one eye from the pox!

 

[sevenbabychicks]

WOW, you guys! Thanks so much for all the awesome advice! I'm going to go out right now and implement it and see what happens.

Centrarchi, I had no idea that hand-raising could create such a monster! But it makes sense; when he's not thinking that I'm an intruder, he does try to treat me like another of his hens and even does that little herding dance around me. He also gets very jealous. My sister calls it an abusive relationship

HHandbasket: I thought he was a Minorcan too for awhile before I found out that MPC didn't have any at the time I ordered mine. Blue Andalusians also come in black and splash, apparently. I ordered two pullet chicks because I REALLY wanted a blue hen, and got a splash hen and a black roo instead. Go figure

 

[sevenbabychicks]

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Oh no! Did any of your others get the pox?

 

[Sorin]

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No, this doesn't always happen

you may have a nice friendly pet rooster, I think silkies aren't always the norm as far as behavior! I mean that in a good way

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

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My understanding of the research is that hand raising does not make them human-aggressive. But rather that hand-raising gets them to see humans as peers and then humans become a target for aggression and sexual behavior.

If a rooster stays docile, then just keep doing what you are doing. They are individuals, not machine parts.

 

[Caitlin342]

haha well good, i had a few other silkie roosters a while ago but did not get to keep them because they were very loud and I remember that a few of them started to attack my dogs! (pomeranians) it was very amusing because the dogs started to fight back and would kind of pin them down!

No, none of my other chickens got pox when the baby had it, i was afraid they would. Also had another chicken die of what we were certain was Marek's (but didn't get a post-mortem done to see), which is suppose to be very very contagious but then none of the other chickens got that either? very weird!

 

[sourland]

Remove one testicle. He's on a testosterone high.

 

[sevenbabychicks]

Update: the stalking thing works! He totally gets freaked when I do it and stays at a respectful distance for awhile. I have to stalk him about 5 times a day to get him to stop flying at me (talk about a bad memory!), but the situation's improved immensely. Thank you!!