Looking for advice on how to respond to cockerel's "dance?"

[Shadrach]

Lets start with the simple; roosters don't dance. Honestly, I've tried playing them all sorts of music, not even a twitch let alone a full on tango. They've got absolutley no sense of rythme.

Next, roosters don't care how big you are. If they did we wouldn't be expecting them to defend their hens and we wouldn't be reading all these posters from people who believe they are being attacked, who are in general much much bigger than a rooster, would we.

But, roosters do care about food; lots and they can be very particular about how food is presented to them and more importantly their hens.
Basically if you are feeding their hens then as far as the rooster is concerend you are competition. If you are large and feeding their hens then your just large competition.

Given the average rooster doesn't break into the quickstep when you sing to him or play a danceable piece of music to him then it stands to reason that while you may think he's dancing he is in fact doing something else.
The art is to work out what he is doing.

One excellent starting point is to look to see if he does the same thing to any other creature, like your cat or maybe around the fishpond if you keep fish. After all, one generally isn't fussy about who one dances for once the rythme takes one.

You may notice your rooster does the same movements to his hens. Nope, not dancing; hens don't have a sense of rythme either.
What do the hens do when the rooster makes these movements? They don't break out in rounds of rapturous applause from what I've seen. They don't sit suddenly transfixed by the dazzling footwork either.

One might be tempted to think he's a horrid rooster trying to kick his poor hens about. However, if you watch carefully you'll notice that the kicking foot is on the opposite side to the hen and you in the case of him not dancing for you. I can't believe that all roosters don't know their right foot from their left, despite not having any sense of rythme, or which side of their body the hen is on.

If one watches the hens reaction to this not dancing move, you'll probably see that they move a little bit away from the rooster. The rooster may do it again and the hen will move a little more. Okay, the hen could just be warming up for a full on tango with her man but the only tango style reaction from a hen I've seen is when they turned round and given the rooster a right hander, or a foot swipe or two.

The move the rooster makes (nope, not dancing) is herding movement and roosters herd their hens. This is one of the ways a rooster manages to get their hens who usually have their beaks in some patch of grass or other with food on their minds to move. You may observe that if that doesn't work the rooster will flash his hackles. That's not dancing either. That's him telling the hen that he doesn't care how tasty that worm in the grass looks or how comfortable she is in the dust bath she needs to move, NOW.

The move is called the herding shuffle. A rooster only does this to his hens and occasionally to his junior offspring male or female. It's a you belong to me type of move. Not aggressive just like when your man, or women, slips their arm around your waist when out walking and gently steers you in some other direction, probably away from the shop window you've been standing at tempted to spend money you don't have.

Reasonably enough, should you turn around and try to beat the crap out of your man, or women, or whatever you identify as, the person who has just slipped their arm around you is likely to get a bit pissy. Roosters feel the same way.

For a more comprehesive view of rooster behaviour this article may prove interesting.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/understanding-your-rooster.75056/

Nope, it's not an article about dancing.

 

[NatJ]

How long do I need to grow him out / give him a chance before I cull?

if / when I decide he's a cull, what do I do with him? Should I just separate him and grow him out at that point?

Once I'm decided that he's gone, should I keep him isolated so the other birds can sort things out without his influence on the flock dynamics? Should I just start isolating him immediately anyway, because I see these red flags? Should I put him on meat bird feed????

I don't know how long you should wait to see about his behavior, but he is edible at any age.

I would not bother with any separation or special feeding or anything of the sort. Leave him with the flock until you decide, then butcher him, have a cute little chicken dinner, and the others can sort out their pecking order after he is gone.

If you try to buy separate feed, build a separate coop, and tend him separately each day, there is no way one cockerel will produce enough extra meat to make it worth the cost and time. That is why I suggest butchering him as soon as you decide, no matter how small he may be at the time.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

Do you hand feed the chicks? At only 5 weeks old I'm thinking it's a food related behavior.

Not often. Mostly I just plop / slide the little feeder trays down. Their food and water was all set up already when I brought them into the pen this morning, and I think I was bending down to check a nest box, but it was located near their food.

A couple times now I have started crouching down to hand feed some mealworms to the chicks while the big birds are getting their mealworm treat, but that is not the norm. There are a couple chicks who get vitamins from me by hand, but only pullets.

 

[Geena]

Lets start with the simple; roosters don't dance. Honestly, I've tried playing them all sorts of music, not even a twitch let alone a full on tango. They've got absolutley no sense of rythme.

Next, roosters don't care how big you are. If they did we wouldn't be expecting them to defend their hens and we wouldn't be reading all these posters from people who believe they are being attacked, who are in general much much bigger than a rooster, would we.

But, roosters do care about food; lots and they can be very particular about how food is presented to them and more importantly their hens.
Basically if you are feeding their hens then as far as the rooster is concerend you are competition. If you are large and feeding their hens then your just large competition.

Given the average rooster doesn't break into the quickstep when you sing to him or play a danceable piece of music to him then it stands to reason that while you may think he's dancing he is in fact doing something else.
The art is to work out what he is doing.

One excellent starting point is to look to see if he does the same thing to any other creature, like your cat or maybe around the fishpond if you keep fish. After all, one generally isn't fussy about who one dances for once the rythme takes one.

You may notice your rooster does the same movements to his hens. Nope, not dancing; hens don't have a sense of rythme either.
What do the hens do when the rooster makes these movements? They don't break out in rounds of rapturous applause from what I've seen. They don't sit suddenly transfixed by the dazzling footwork either.

One might be tempted to think he's a horrid rooster trying to kick his poor hens about. However, if you watch carefully you'll notice that the kicking foot is on the opposite side to the hen and you in the case of him not dancing for you. I can't believe that all roosters don't know their right foot from their left, despite not having any sense of rythme, or which side of their body the hen is on.

If one watches the hens reaction to this not dancing move, you'll probably see that they move a little bit away from the rooster. The rooster may do it again and the hen will move a little more. Okay, the hen could just be warming up for a full on tango with her man but the only tango style reaction from a hen I've seen is when they turned round and given the rooster a right hander, or a foot swipe or two.

The move the rooster makes (nope, not dancing) is herding movement and roosters herd their hens. This is one of the ways a rooster manages to get their hens who usually have their beaks in some patch of grass or other with food on their minds to move. You may observe that if that doesn't work the rooster will flash his hackles. That's not dancing either. That's him telling the hen that he doesn't care how tasty that worm in the grass looks or how comfortable she is in the dust bath she needs to move, NOW.

The move is called the herding shuffle. A rooster only does this to his hens and occasionally to his junior offspring male or female. It's a you belong to me type of move. Not aggressive just like when your man, or women, slips their arm around your waist when out walking and gently steers you in some other direction, probably away from the shop window you've been standing at tempted to spend money you don't have.

Reasonably enough, should you turn around and try to beat the crap out of your man, or women, or whatever you identify as, the person who has just slipped their arm around you is likely to get a bit pissy. Roosters feel the same way.

For a more comprehesive view of rooster behaviour this article may prove interesting.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/understanding-your-rooster.75056/

Nope, it's not an article about dancing.

I've always seen the "dancing" as a herding type behavior. Most roosters I've had do this every morning to move the hens out of the coop and towards the food.
But I've also seen them do this to the dogs many times which I would assume then means back off. So I would think it's not always done in a possessive kind of way.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I have 3 roosters and the dominate male, Blue, tends to occasionally get aggressive with me, I just make sure that I always wear jeans when I go down there to spend time with the flock. If he wasn't so good with the girls, I would definitely end his existence, but he is reeeeally good with the girls. When I dispense food or treats, he stands over it and calls the girls to eat and makes sure that they all eat before he or the other 2 boys do and the hens always lay with him. They do tend to ignore him when I am down there, many of the hens like to sit on my lap and I think he gets jealous. I am going to dig out my garden gloves and catch him and carry him around like a pocket roo for a bit. I did that with the other boys when they were being aggressive with the girls and their behaviour has settled down and the gently take treats out of my hand now.

Blue is an amazing attentive caretaker for my hens, so I am working with him as opposed to killing him. When he flaps at me, I take a step towards him until he backs down, then I follow him around the run, lecturing him, until he shows that he has given up. Since I have started doing this, the acts of aggression have been far less frequent and he backs down faster. Rooster puberty seems to be reeeally rough. If your Rooster is good with your hens, I would be wary but give him a chance. When he dances at you, take a step towards him, but use a friendly voice and talk to him and do not turn your back on him.

You have the option of trying to win him over with treats and patience or you can just establish yourself as the top of the pecking order and give each other a wide berth. If you want to try to win him over, you can try to get ahold of him, hold him in such a way that he can't flap or spur you and carry him a round and talk to him, even pet him when he is calm. Either way, if you keep him, be sure to wear long pants, preferably denim and boots, (I have a nice pair of wellies that I always wear in the run), maybe gloves, and a long sleeve shirt to give yourself some protection. Don't turn your back or walk away from him and be wary. You will probably never be able to fully trust a rooster, they have 2 jobs, security and mating, which probably means intermittent aggressive behaviour.

I know this is wordy, but I wanted to share some background with you so that you understand where I am coming from. It is more important to me, that the roos are good with my hens and I will work with him as long as he is taking care of them.

He's only five weeks old at this point, so there's no spurs or anything like that to worry about. Yet. I really appreciate you sharing your experience!

So far, I do think the girls like him. He's got his one main babe with similar coloring, and then the other two more ruddy / red chicks who came with that batch of four. The two Wyandottes came together, so far it's been easy enough for them to get along because it's clear which female(s) belong with which male. At least as far as the chicks go.

I don't know whether the older hens will be able to teach him some manners so they all like him, or not. But I was hoping to get a cockerel of the same breed as half of my hens, rather than a mutt. :/ So at the end of the day, he's just a bird we accidentally ended up with. Not to say he automatically has to clear out, but anyway, I don't really have room in a small flock to keep indefinitely a mutt who's holding the space of an SOP bred cock bird.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

Lol okay, yeah I do see your point. For now I have him separated look but don't touch, because I was cleaning out the brooder and I have a couple other chicks separated anyway, so I just have them in two crates beside the pen. I also want to keep observing the behavior of the rest of the birds today, but I'm not opposed to watching them all together a bit longer. It's definitely a heck of a lot simpler than trying to build him his own pen. It would however be my first cull, so I still might like to give him a little more time to prove himself / grow out, so it feels a little more worthwhile, and also that I don't have any reservations that we should have kept him longer.

Although I haven't yet heard someone say, oh yeah, we should have given that dominant cockerel more of a chance... I only ever hear people say they should have gotten rid of him a lot sooner, or that they didn't hesitate to nip it in the bud.

 

[Shadrach]

I've always seen the "dancing" as a herding type behavior. Most roosters I've had do this every morning to move the hens out of the coop and towards the food.
But I've also seen them do this to the dogs many times which I would assume then means back off. So I would think it's not always done in a possessive kind of way.

Well that's amazing, particularly given what you've written earlier on this thread. It is possible for a rooster to consider a dog às part of his tribe. In the various places I've looked after chickens there must have been over 30 dogs from Akitas to Jack Russel's and over 50 male chickens and I've yet to see a rooster try to herd a dog. My immediate thoughts are eier or both dog and rooster need therapy or you need an eye test.

 

[Geena]

particularly given what you've written earlier on this thread.

What in particular was that?

The roosters HATE my dogs, because it's quite clear that they would kill the chickens if not under my control. If the dogs don't back off the rooster will then go after them.
Most of aggressive roosters that I've had started off by "dancing" at me too.
Do you think it's not a warning/warding off behavior as well?

 

[Shadrach]

What in particular was that?

The roosters HATE my dogs, because it's quite clear that they would kill the chickens if not under my control. If the dogs don't back off the rooster will then go after them.
Most of aggressive roosters that I've had started off by "dancing" at me too.
Do you think it's not a warning/warding off behavior as well?

No I don't. I've had a few roosters herd me and they haven't attacked me. Millions of male chickens are killed each week. The hysterical nonsense one can read on chicken keeping sites is not helping their plight. The backyard keeper is one of the few hopes for the rooster and ignorance that gets published about their behaviour just helps to kill a few more.

 

[Geena]

I've had a few roosters herd me and they haven't attacked me.

I've had them attempt to herd and tidbit me and it never went any further than that as well. It is sad that so many cockerels are killed. If they got along better and weren't so hard on the hens I'd keep a lot more roosters.

Unfortunately ignorance is abundant and a lot of animals of all kinds end up taking a dirt nap due to people's lack of understanding and/or inability to handle them properly.