Mean roo

[mtnranchroo]

I have 6 RIR hens about 3 mos old. Someone gave me a young roo about 5-6 mos old. He was red with green tail feathers. Within a couple days he bit a hole in the back of the neck one of the hens. Of course the other hens joined in the pecking. I isolated the injured bird, got it healed up and tried to reintroduce her to the flock, free ranging at the time. The roo immediately chased her off into the woods and I rescued her before he hurt her again. I waited a few more days, tried to put her back with the flock free ranging. Same results. Now the roo is gone (with help) and the 6 hens are getting along just fine.

I thought maybe this one hen might be a roo simply because the way the mature roo went after her (him?) Anybody have any ideas why this happened? I've never experienced anything like this in the 20 yrs I've kept layers.

 

[BowChickaBowMow]

I'm new to chickens, so don't have any advice for you. Just wanted to let you know that of my birds I have 7 EE's (one of them is the head roo) and 3 BO's (another roo in this group) The head EE roo goes after the back of the neck of the BO roo. They've done this for a few weeks, but not so much this past week. I'm guessing the BO roo is learning his place by now? I think it's EE roo's way of keeping BO roo submissive? The head roo does an absolute wonderful job of protecting his flock. We live amongst many predators and he's always very alert and will heard them into their coop, or under cover very quickly when anything comes around. So i trust his instincts when it comes to keeping them all in line.

Sorry you had to get rid of your chick. But glad you got him before he hurt anyone too bad.

 

[nnbreeder]

Not much help here but sometimes they just don't like each other and I've never seen any reason for it.

 

[fivebigreds]

i don't belive a rooster can tell a hen from a rooster until the hen acts like a girl. My rooster treats all new pullets as young roosters until they prove to him otherwise. Maybe that pullet gave him the " i'm a rival" impression by mistake.