My 4 yr old got attacked by my roo- any advice for prevention?

MUCH.. i agree... we are not argueing.. i am not mad... you are not mad.. just debating and stating our opinions...
please DONT read my post like i am mad.. because i am not...

much.. i am glad to see someone still have the "bull" and let there kids be around them,, yet WATCH that little toro carfully..
i agree with you that they CANT be "trained" they live by pure instinct alone... but through several hundered years of breeding we HAVE produced some calmer birds.. with almost NON-aggressive roos.. yes they are MALE with MALE hormones, cant breed ALL of that out of them;)

kids and farms are OK .. as long as there are big strong fences,, and a child that LISTENS to you, or they wont be around to pass on their genes..
 
Wow well it seems this thread has gotten a little umm..hmm..weird.
I am a great mom and so I am gonna ignore words like CPS etc...(I think that is really unecessary) My daughter was not hurt but shaken and this has actually been a good lessen because no one was hurt. We must always remember that animals are animals first and to know and realize that a nice Rooster can become a mean one in 1 second. You can't really always trust them, is what I gathered. Even when hand raised and he has always been really sweet and still nice and pick up able. Like many have said maybe he felt a little threatened in the coop? Who knows and it doesn't really matter the why because the end result was he came at her.

Just so everyone knows I don't leave her out there alone or anything I was right there 2 ft away. I am just stating the facts so there is no confusion on parenting. My hubby was also right outside the coop door. We didn't overreact because we were not hurt. If my dd would have been hurt I would have kicked the rooster and talked about the delicious meal we would make out of him. So with that said there are always good lessons to learn and this is one of them. Thank you all for your words of wisdom! We love having chickens.
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My great grand mother had a flogging rooster once. He drew blood on her legs 3 times in a row one week. She had me fetch her a tobacca stick.

It was a site to see. My 84 year old grandma and that rooster circling each other in the pen. When the fight started, dust, feathers, chicken poo and gravel was flying. Grandma looked like Bruce Lee in the temple of Chickens for a few minutes.

He was to old to fry. So she dropped him in the boiling pot and rolled out some dumpling.

It would have been a sell out on pay preview.

Hoot
 
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i think you mis-took something,,, noone ever said YOU leave your daughter,, noone said YOU should have cps called,,,,,,, ALL them were examples,,,, NOTHING to do with you...in fact i think you handled the situation the right way, for it being your first time it has happened.
 
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i think you mis-took something,,, noone ever said YOU leave your daughter,, noone said YOU should have cps called,,,,,,, ALL them were examples,,,, NOTHING to do with you...in fact i think you handled the situation the right way, for it being your first time it has happened.

Ya I hear ya! I was just clarifying... I saw the darn words CPS and really rubs me the wrong way sometimes even if it wasn't really applying to my situation. I have seen those words thrown in a lot in threads on forums all over and I think it is silly in many cases. ( ofcourse not all) Anyhow I do like alot of what you have said. It is always good to learn and get others views pts even if you choose someway different, atleast you get a well rounded picture of the situation. Again thanks for everyones input, it helps the "roundness". lol
 
Even Nonaggressive breed roos get aggressive. That is how DSD's was. He's a pure Buff Orpington. Normally one of the top calm breeds around. I think for each roo and each situation that occurs, one needs to assess what one expects of that roo, how important is that particular roo is to you in having chickens and what can be done to stop the situation from happening again.

The OP stated she had enough roos, she made the right choice for her situation. And, it was her decision.
 
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CA Bean: You've already got a ton of input on "what to do with roo", and sound like you are not going to tolerate any danger to your child, so I am not going to go into THAT part of it, I'm sure you will do the right thing!

I guess I was just wondering, aside from already discussed normal roo behavior- i.e., mating and protection, how likely it is/was that normal roo DOMINATING behavior was the trigger for this particular incident. ?

Just guessing that if he's already in a mindset to figure out "where he fits in" with the other roo (you said 3rd roo is already determined suboordinate, but the other 2 have not established rank yet), and was being held by the small (least threatening) human, which puts him in a suboordinate position (to her), in an area that he may be slightly more protective of (coop as opposed to run or outside), he might have just decided to "pull rank" on your DD, hence the attack as soon as she put him down... maybe he decided it was time to challenge her formerly accepted "alpha" rank? It's actually fairly common that if an animal has a strong "dominance drive" (either by species and/or as an individual), and is going to start challenging humans for "rank", the first human to be aggressed upon is often a small child.

Anyway, it kinda seemed more likely than him getting "scared", or even feeling like your DD was threatening the hens, based on your description of how the incident played out... ???

Just my 2 cents, i think you're right, he probably DID feel threatened by her, but maybe more in a "rank & status" kind of way....

But like you said, the bottom line is that he came at her, and Kudos to you for that BEING your bottom line, would be mine, too (I have a 4 yr old DD, too!).
 
I had two roosters. The first one attacked me and then went after my then 4 year old daughter. He scared the beejebberzs out of her and she wanted NOTHING to do with chickens for a long time. Made it hard at the barn i board at since the BO has a large flock of chickens.

Our second one attacked me twice. Even without his spurs the "flogging" bruised my leg up and that was through jeans. My daughter(6) used to go out in the mornings and let them out and feed them. after he came at me the first time I told her not to until he was gone. I rehomed him to a man with a large free range flock with other roosters and no small children.
It was a shame because he was a really nice looking Partridge Rock.
 
another thingy you reminded me of,,,,,, the morning "outs" ,, when you let ya birds out in the morning, watch the roo,, they usually will make sure ALL girls are out, and they "herd" them, and will do the "roo dance" ,, i think to reassure everyone HE is still boss even tho its a new day,,, to me,, first thing in the morning a roo is the most aggressive,,,,,,,,,,, i have 15 or so roo's,, and every one of them do this in the morning,,,, noone is allowed in my yards in the morning after i let my birds out, for at least an hour.
 

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