Mean rooster

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
Thank you, we all enjoy them here! There are local school teachers who like to hatch my hens' eggs in their classrooms and they always return the hatched chicks to me. I sell the pullets and grow out the cockerels for my table. They turn out exactly half dark & half white meat, and really good. In order to keep my expenses and work to a minimum with them, I let them roam the yard all day in hopes they'll forage for much of their feed.

 

[Yazzo]

Don't believe what people say about roosters being 'incurable'. It's just NOT true. Check it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=63850-the-definite-guide-to-roosters

 

[gardendufus]

I suggest reading this!!!!!!!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=573517

 

[stormylady]

I also would never hatch out his chicks-you dont' want his undesirable genes passed along.
agreed 100%
I also do the picking up and holding them, when I grab up a boy thats acting stupid, I flip him upside down and hold him by the feet for a few minutes (not to long) just til he calms down, then set him upright and carry him around about 20 mins or so messing around with his comb and wattles , feet basically anything hands on, then put him down If he acts stupid again then we do the whole process over again. Sometimes when I go in the pen I head straight for them and walk right up to them if they back down and walk away I go about my bussiness , if they act like they want to go toe to toe with me, then we do it all over again. I do kick them off the females when I'm out there with them and chase them a bit and pull at there tails just to let them know but I only try for a while and mostly with the young (baby-teenage) times. if they haven't learned by the time there grown. I get rid of them. Every once in a while I will give the older Roosters a Refresher course, Not because their being bad just to remind them I'm the Head of our flock. But the Roos I have now are super sweet and don't mind getting held at all so I use the time to just cuddle with them.

 

[brownysfp]

Of all our roosters (12 out of 78 birds) the Light Sussex has been the most trouble. The only thing that's kept him out the oven is the attention he gives his hens...that and he's a beauty. After a few minor run-ins (dealt with by chasing him) we had a major falling-out. I'd bent down weeding when he flew at my face. He didn't make contact but I did.
He got his arse kicked quite literally, then pinned down for a few minutes and given a couple of cuffs to the head. Since then he's been a model citizen but every morning he gets a reminder of the food chain when I open the coop. Nothing heavy but just enough for him to toe the line.
I agree though - if your roo continues you can't risk him hurting you or the kids.

 

[galanie]

At the very first sign of aggression to me, I hold them to the ground with a firm grip on the feathers at the back of the head until they relax. I then slowly let go, and if they start to struggle again, the grip tightens and down they go again. I keep doing that till I can let go completely and they don't so much as move a feather. Once I let them know it's OK to get up, they're like YES MA'AM ! And know for darned sure who the boss is. If it doesn't work, there's always the slow cooker. Much less time wasted.

I look at it this way: I'm 5'5" tall and weigh 130 lbs at my ideal weight (a lady never tells her weight lol), he's 16" tall (at the back, not the head) and weighs 10 lbs. I'm the boss and I refuse to be intimidated by a tiny chicken, even if he is big by chicken standards. He's still tiny by human standards.

 

[snaffle]

It has been 2 months now since I posted about the mean rooster. Shortly after I wrote this, I was in the barn and he came at me. I booted him across the barn aisle which was about 7 or 8 feet. I actually kicked him harder than I intended. He has not once come at me since. In fact he carefully watches when I walk past him. For a long time he would vacate the area when I walked towards him.

The longer he goes without showing aggressive behavior the happier I will be. I have 2 of his young sons that are very calm.

I feel that his aggressive behavior began because I would often pick up young chicks and he felt he should protect them when they suawked.

 

[luvussomechicks]

I have the same problem. He is an Americana mixed mean rooster. He is only 3 months old and just recently he has been so mean to the hens. Not with me though. I have 2 other roos and they are not mean but I am worried, if I get rid of this roo will another one come up to be dominate and turn mean? They are all the same age. Will just puttling him in another pen by himself help or will it agiate the meanest if I put him back in with them. Help! poor things can't eat treats or just walk around the yard without having their feathers pulled out!

Another question- when he pulls out the hens feathers, some hens run over and eat the feathers! Are they good for them or not anything I should care about?

 

[cardinalmaccio]

thank you for the mean rooster advice

 

[speckledhen]

For the most part, temperament is heritable. It's genetic, folks. All the "retraining" in the world won't overcome genetics. It may make the rooster in question leery of the one person who is booting him across the barnyard, but it WILL NOT change his innate temperament. I've done all the techniques proposed by the "experts" and have never found any of them to work on a cockerel who already has his hormones in full swing and is mating the hens.

The Belgian D'Anver rooster is known for aggressive temperament. They cannot truly be retrained. It's in their nature. I've tried, believe me. All you can do is select the least aggressive ones and breed from those. I've had one non-aggressive d'Anver male and if he hadn't had something wrong inside and passed on, I would have kept only him to breed from. Of course, I'm left with my feathered pitbull male in that pen.


Why put up with a human-aggressive rooster when you can have one like my Isaac, who does his duty as he should, and is completely easygoing and friendly? Check out the video in this post for proof of what a rooster can be like:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/384349/sdwd/14610#post_8894682
Another video from photobucket: http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/Mtnviewpoultry/Video Clips/?action=view&current=DSCN5537.mp4

To clarify, Ike was not handled much as a chick. He comes from a line of Delawares chosen for temperament. Some breeders may not care about that, but 99% of backyard flock owners and a large portion of quality breeders sure do. And many believe a rooster must be aggressive to be a good breeder or to protect the flock, which is completely not true in my experience. You won't find a more prolific breeder than Isaac-even at over 3 1/2 years of age, he handles over 20 hens.

I do not require my roosters to be cuddly, but I do require them to be intelligent enough not to attack the hand that feeds them. My blue Orpington rooster is the sweetest rooster, too, never even a nip his entire almost six years of life. His sons are the same way because he passed that on to them.