Keeping Roosters That Others Hate

[TashaFrancois]

Ladyprinc3ss: If you had a dog that was snappy and aggressive towards strangers, would you chance letting it hang around your boarding barn to interact with the people that come in good faith to relax and enjoy being with their horses? Of course you wouldn't! You wouldn't do it because it would be socially unconscionable to let your pet menace any other person who's minding their own business and doing nothing wrong, and, in your specific case, it would be very, very bad business sense...asshat boarding barn owners who obliviously let even friendly dogs race about and spook the boarders' horses and just generally make pests of themselves is one of the top reasons that paying boarders MOVE. Such people will be even less tolerant when it's a rooster harassing them...most people don't see chickens as pets. So...to keep the peace and for the sake of your clients and the roosters and your own sanity and business welfare, keep the problem birds CONFINED whenever you have visitors on the property! There! Done! Everyone's safe and you still have your roosters.

Honestly, I don't understand why this would be difficult for you. I imagine that most of the folks who board come out to visit in the evenings and all day during the weekends, yes? That gives the roosters plenty of time to run with the hens most days. Build them a separate little pen and as soon as the first visitor shows up every day, just go catch the bad boys and lock 'em up. You could even have a bit of fun with this. Put the new pen up where the roosters can see everything that's going on and stick a sign on it that says 'ROOSTER JAIL' or something like that. Your visitors will see that and smile and breathe a mental sigh of relief that they won't have to be on alert for a feathery kamikaze attack anymore. Maybe you could even give your visitors healthy treats to feed to the roosters while they're in the pen of shame. Might even sweeten everybody's attitude towards the other...who knows...

I don’t see how building them a proper encloser wouldn’t be enough. It’s not like the birds would bark at them.

 

[TashaFrancois]

I had a similar problem here.
The people who own the property decided having got various animals which free range they then decided at a much later date that they would rent out one of the apartments.
I did point out at the time that this posed considerable risk. There was a ram free ranging that would knock down anyone who got near his ewes. It's what rams do. There was also a rather aggressive donkey who liked knocking people over and biting them if they tried to hand feed him.
I got tired of being a nervous wreck watching people who had absolutely no understanding of animal behavior point their children at animals here that had virtually no contact with strangers.
You can train most creatures to be human tolerant but even training humans to be stranger tolerant is difficult.
The answer could be to firstly prohibit rentals where children are involved; it's what we have here now and secondly make a contract that absolves you of any liability should a person get injured by an animal on your property. You may get less rentals of course but such a contract is possible.
It's a bit like setting up a dangerous sports center. You play at your own risk.

Wow that’s a lot worse than a rooster in a proper run. A ram? Yikes!

 

[WindingRoad]

There us alternative advice that could be offered. If you feel participation in a co conversation is pointless you dont have to participate

And I didn't. You can only change yourself. It's futile to try and change others. A mean rooster should be gotten rid of. End of story.

 

[TashaFrancois]

And I didn't. You can only change yourself. It's futile to try and change others. A mean rooster should be gotten rid of. End of story.

 

[aart]

Wow that’s a lot worse than a rooster in a proper run. A ram? Yikes!

IKR?!?!