Little rooster needs the talk

[iamrobotbug]

Hi all!

I suspect what I’m witnessing is totally normal, but why not ask?
One of our hens hatched four chicks ten weeks ago, and for the most part all is well, and i ended up with three pullets and a cockerel, Brian.

I’ve witnessed a little bit of feather plucking/mild bullying from him towards other chicks, but nothing consistent enough to be worrisome.

What he IS doing is mounting one of my adult hens, to which she seems to grudgingly submit even though he’s only ten weeks old. She’s at the bottom of the pecking order of my three adult hens, and he doesn’t do it to the chicks or the other hens. He chest bumps the pullets, mounts the #3 hen, squares up to the #2 hen but backs down, and avoids the top hen like the devil.

Seems like this is probably standard pecking order establishment since no one gets hurt, but I figured I would ask the community how normal it is for a cockerel to start acting like a teenage jerk at 10 weeks?

 

[ChickNanny13]

Sounds like "hormones" coming in, thinking pretty normal

 

[Folly's place]

Within normal range. Hot stuff already! As long as there are no injuries, and plenty of space and escape areas, all sounds fine.
Mary

 

[iamrobotbug]

Within normal range. Hot stuff already! As long as there are no injuries, and plenty of space and escape areas, all sounds fine.
Mary

One of my pullets got injured last weekend when I wasn’t home (missing a whole patch of feathers on the back of her head) and I wasn’t sure if it was him or one of the adult hens. I added more hiding areas and haven’t seen any more injuries to her or any others, and the injured pullet is back to acting like her normal self after one day right after the incident of being very timid.

 

[Folly's place]

She may have behaved badly to one of the hens, and been corrected. Glad things seem okay now.
Mary

 

[aart]

All sounds pretty normal, tho rather precocious.
Hopefully you have lots of space and places for the harassed to 'hide' from his attentions.
Curious, which hen hatched these chicks?

 

[Shadrach]

Not a jerk at all. In fact surprisingly adult and civilized behavior.
If he's doing the chest bump rather that just grabbing anything he can get his beak around, usually at the back of the neck, then he's asking.
When you are at the bottom of the hierarchy "any love is good lovin so I took what I could get, you ain't seen nothin yet".
He sounds like a diamond geezer to me.