My "pride and joy" rooster is turning aggressive....

[Avalon1984]

He is a BO rooster with beautiful feathers- but he is starting to get attitude. Yesterday he flocked me but I thought it was because of my red mucking boots. Today I sent hubby in the pen with him and hubby petted the hens- and my rooster went after him too. What a shame but I will not tolerate a rooster acting like this. I have many nice and friendly rooster and am not willing to risk anybody getting hurt. So I will process him Saturday. Why does it always seem to be the pretty ones that get attitude????

Everybody complimented me all year on how pretty he was and now this....

 

[goldies99]

im sorry.....i had a bunch of rooster that had to go too!....but i just sent them to a farm!

 

[gryeyes]

Have you considered training him before deciding to cull? If he's just now coming into sexual maturity, he is "poisoned" by testosterone and just doing what comes naturally to protect his flock.

If you train him to understand YOU are the Boss of the Flock, over him, and wait out the early stages of adolescent rooster behavior, you might not need to process him at all.

There are a whole lot of posts about dealing with aggressive roosters and how to train 'em....

 

[KarenP]

Oh no...My favorite rooster is maturing too and i am so scared of this!! They start off so friendly and steal your heart then their hormones kick in and this is what we end up with!!

 

[Avalon1984]

I hear you. Unfortunately I AM the farm. I cannot bear giving him away. He can jump so high, he could take a childs eye out or something. I'll get a couple new BO chicks next year at Tractor Supply and try my luck on them again. Plus I have some beautiful Salmon Faverolle roos growing that are extremely gentle and docile. That is what I want in a roo. I don't mind a roo being protective whatsoever, be he flocked my hubby as he just approached the hens and then tried it again when he petted them. Sorry buddy.

 

[anderson8505]

I'm sorry. Happened to me too. Darn hormones!

 

[Avalon1984]

Quote:
Hey gyreyes. I have tried that before and it never worked for me. He has been sexually mature for a while and is just now starting this behavior. At 100+ chickens I'd rather be sure the behavior is gone by eliminating the bird than try and train him and possibly having to re-train, deal with injured kids (we have lots of children coming out to pet the chickens) etc. I do understand where you are coming from though and appreciate your advise.

 

[Avalon1984]

Quote:
Believe it or not, I have a black australorp rooster and he is going on 2 years and is a sweetheart. He knows his limits and is respectful to human beings. Chickens can pet him and carry him around. All of his "sons" that I hatched (about 40 of them) kept this friendly trait and I am happy about this. Then I got this BO as a chick at TSC and he was fine at first, I figured I'd have another winner but now he is getting like that. Even when he sees us on the other side of the fence he raises his neck feathers. That said, I am finding that somestimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not.

 

[Avalon1984]

Quote:
I know

 

[BooBear]

You need to train up on how to deal with aggression as even the sweetest boys go through the ugly hormone phase.
You need to learn how to use your body language to signal to him that you are to be respected or he gets your ornery side.
Even if you are going to process him try a few techniques on him for learning. This will come in handy should you need it down the road.

1) Give him the stink eye glare down
2) Go into stalk mode (quick pace walk at the intended target). Use this stalk to make him move and keep at it till he is zig zagging to get away. (this shows he has given in)
3) If he looks like he is thinking about flogging, beat him to it by grabbing motion and tugg on tail feathers. This should startle him out. However, if he is truely being a turd you may need to give him a swift but semi gentle boot into the air.
4) For no reason walk over and push him out of the way.
5) Never let him mate near you.

This are intimidation techniques that roosters understand. The purpose is to put the fear of your dominance in him and make sure he respects it. All roosters will think about challenging the most top bird for the prize position. They see their caretakers as holding this spot (when you are around them all the time they will associate you as part of their flock.) By learning how to apply these simply techniques you can get your boy to not be aggressive toward you and enjoy him more.

Note: There are individuals in every breed that can show unusually high aggression toward people and will not bend to above teqhniques or anyother attempt at rehabilitating. The only option is to cull these into a tasty dish.