My rooster and I’s Relationship

[HeatherKellyB]

What breed is your rooster? What age did this aggressive behavior begin?

 

[DonyaQuick]

My cuddly hens and my new cuddly roo will often ask for hugs. Asking for attention can come in many forms and you can train it to a degree. I've had to train a couple of my hens that asking to be picked up must be gentle - i.e. a light tap rather than biting hard enough to leave a mark. If I hadn't trained them on that, my lower legs would be one big bruise lol. My rooster came to me already trained to ask for hugs by assuming a "pick me up" pose and/or resting his head on me. So, I do wonder if you're actually teaching your roo that aggression gets him attention by picking him up too soon after his aggressive outbursts and/or by not correcting his tantrums when you set him down.

 

[Iluveggers]

My cuddly hens and my new cuddly roo will often ask for hugs. Asking for attention can come in many forms and you can train it to a degree. I've had to train a couple of my hens that asking to be picked up must be gentle - i.e. a light tap rather than biting hard enough to leave a mark. If I hadn't trained them on that, my lower legs would be one big bruise lol. My rooster came to me already trained to ask for hugs by assuming a "pick me up" pose and/or resting his head on me. So, I do wonder if you're actually teaching your roo that aggression gets him attention by picking him up too soon after his aggressive outbursts and/or by not correcting his tantrums when you set him down.

May I ask how you trained your girls to peck you lightly for attention?

 

[DonyaQuick]

May I ask how you trained your girls to peck you lightly for attention?

If they aren't nice I just push them away gently and tell them "[name] no!" until they either go do something else for a bit or change tactics. The verbal component works better with a particular hen who has some vision issues, since she responds to voice commands a lot more than my others. I think the gentle pushing away is the main thing otherwise. If any of my hens do something mean while sitting on me (including to another chicken) then I say the same "[name] no!" and set them down straight away. When they ask nicely by making a noise, pose, or light tap, I try to respond quickly to maintain the association or at least reach down and give them a little feather scruffle so they at least get something positive even if I can't pick them up right then. The hardest one to train was my compulsive face-biter who would hop up and just nail me out of nowhere. With her I had to get a hand over her head and push her down pretty fast, kind of more like the way people push roosters down. She was naughty so often last year that she started to just give up and go sulk instead of ask for attention at all, so I had to ambush her with random momentary hugs when she was being good for about a week. I have coffee every day with my girls rain or shine so they've had a lot of reinforcement of those things.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

If they aren't nice I just push them away gently and tell them "[name] no!" until they either go do something else for a bit or change tactics. The verbal component works better with a particular hen who has some vision issues, since she responds to voice commands a lot more than my others. I think the gentle pushing away is the main thing otherwise. If any of my hens do something mean while sitting on me (including to another chicken) then I say the same "[name] no!" and set them down straight away. When they ask nicely by making a noise, pose, or light tap, I try to respond quickly to maintain the association or at least reach down and give them a little feather scruffle so they at least get something positive even if I can't pick them up right then. The hardest one to train was my compulsive face-biter who would hop up and just nail me out of nowhere. With her I had to get a hand over her head and push her down pretty fast, kind of more like the way people push roosters down. She was naughty so often last year that she started to just give up and go sulk instead of ask for attention at all, so I had to ambush her with random momentary hugs when she was being good for about a week. I have coffee every day with my girls rain or shine so they've had a lot of reinforcement of those things.

I think most chickens are about as smart as a rubber mallet. With the exception of gamefowl. My guess is that you are just startling them.

 

[Annalyse]

My cuddly hens and my new cuddly roo will often ask for hugs. Asking for attention can come in many forms and you can train it to a degree. I've had to train a couple of my hens that asking to be picked up must be gentle - i.e. a light tap rather than biting hard enough to leave a mark. If I hadn't trained them on that, my lower legs would be one big bruise lol. My rooster came to me already trained to ask for hugs by assuming a "pick me up" pose and/or resting his head on me. So, I do wonder if you're actually teaching your roo that aggression gets him attention by picking him up too soon after his aggressive outbursts and/or by not correcting his tantrums when you set him down.

In the beginning I’ve tried correcting him. I’ve had to watch videos on how to rain him and they just never worked for me. He just gets more aggresive with it. He likes to jump up on things to get high. Like I’ll point at something and say come on and he’ll jump up onto it. I honestly gave up with the correcting and training because I don’t think it ever worked. How can I do it now?

 

[Annalyse]

What breed is your rooster? What age did this aggressive behavior begin?

He is a Swedish flower. He was supposed to be a hen but the breeder gave me a rooster instead. I could have returned him but it the beginning he was really sweet. When he hit teenager the hormones made him mean. People said he’d get better so I let it be and it just never did. I trained him to were I can pick him up without him trying to be aggresive with it.

 

[Buckingham Palace]

I have a rooster thats cuddley he dose not want to be caught but when I do he falls a sleep on my lap and lies out by his self. i don’t think on scaring him as he was cuddly with his perverse owner. You could be accidentally teaching him that is he’s aggressive he will get cuddles. good luck.

 

[Annalyse]

I have a rooster thats cuddley he dose not want to be caught but when I do he falls a sleep on my lap and lies out by his self. i don’t think on scaring him as he was cuddly with his perverse owner. You could be accidentally teaching him that is he’s aggressive he will get cuddles. good luck.

I mean I know it’s bad but he’s less agressive with it. I rather him be less aggressive than hurt me.

 

[DonyaQuick]

I think most chickens are about as smart as a rubber mallet. With the exception of gamefowl. My guess is that you are just startling them.

Extremely willful yes, requiring a TON of reinforcement yes, sometimes having to explore behavior options by brute force yes...but dumb as a rock no. There are plenty of videos online showing people training chickens to do things with simple reinforcement tricks. If any animal does something occasionally, you can usually teach it not to do that thing or to do it more. Mine are not startled; if anything they get angry when I push them back (which is SLOW and gentle so they don't spook). I've also had to teach my vision-impaired hen how to jump on all the jumpable things in the enclosure since she has no depth perception and will just slam into stuff otherwise. I use voice commands as part of that so I don't have to guide her by hand all the time.

In the beginning I’ve tried correcting him. I’ve had to watch videos on how to rain him and they just never worked for me. He just gets more aggresive with it. He likes to jump up on things to get high. Like I’ll point at something and say come on and he’ll jump up onto it. I honestly gave up with the correcting and training because I don’t think it ever worked. How can I do it now?

With pretty much any animal, the initial attempt to change a deeply-reinforced existing behavior can prompt pushback/escalation. The animal may think it just has to try harder to get what it wants. It takes persistence and consistency to get past that. It can be a process of weeks, not days. Go in expecting it to get worse at first (and dress accordingly!) and be a rock - don't react to him having a go at you except to issue the correction. With any aggressive animal, if it has a go at you and you flinch, pull your hand back, etc., you just taught it that it can bully you. Ideally you also want consistency from the entire household, so if others can't be equally stoic then it's better that they don't interact until significant training has taken place.

I don't have a lot of rooster experience but it honestly sounds to me like you have a very friendly and trainable chicken if you can tell him to jump here or there and he does it. You might not be able to stop all of his aggression, but I would hope it can be at least toned down.

There are basically only two things you can do with any animal: reward the good behavior and present some stimulus he doesn't like or remove something he does like for the bad - and then hope he's still malleable enough to change (some animals get harder to train out of things with age). If it were me I would be inclined to try rewarding him for following commands. If he likes hugs, ask him to jump then pick him up and give him attention. You could also use food treats if he'll eat them and doesn't just try to tidbit with it. Reward for random goodness will encourage the good behavior in a broad sense. For aggressive outbursts, pin his front end down on the ground until he sits still for several seconds. If he flies back at you when you let him up, pin again, and repeat. Assuming he finally moves away, just let him be and try interacting with him again later in the day. If he just won't give it a rest no matter how many times you pin him, you could try using a penalty box - a small enclosure or pet carrier to put him in for 5-10min that doesn't get him what he wants but also doesn't let him carry on being aggressive.

To place this advice in context: I have not had to wrangle a mean rooster specifically, but I have had to wrangle a good many other animals with bad behaviors over time, including other birds like parrots.