My sweet boy has gone psycho

[Coop de Grille]

I have an 18 week old Buff Orp roo that has been the sweetest boy, up until now. He is in a pen with 6 Buff Orp hens the same age, 21 ten week old pullets and one ten week old cockerel. He never pecked at the younger chicks, even when I was integrating them in with the big girls.

This morning there was mayhem going on in the coop and I went outside to see what was up. He was chasing everyone around, pecking the hell out of them all. He has never done this before. Never. The feed was knocked over and some of the girls were up on the rafters trying to get away from him. It was like he went psycho and was trying to kill them all.

He has been mating all the big girls, and trying with some of the 10 week olds too. Aside from the 10 week old cockerel he is the only rooster with 27 girls so I don't think has anything to do with mating. I'm new to chickens so I could be wrong.

I separated him and put him in my baby pen area. He can still see the other chickens between the fencing. I put my 10 week old cockerel in with him for company and so far so good. What would have happened for him to go crazy like this on the other chickens? This happened this morning, just as they were all waking up and coming out of the coop.

 

[chicmom]

I believe it's the testosterone has finally hit. He is that age, where they start mating and they do get super randy and get a little bit crazy. Sometimes they get kind of violent, due to their inexperienced, clumsy nature.

Young cockerels don't know what they're doing at that point, the pullets sometimes aren't ready to mate, so they want nothing to do with him. He in turn, gets very frustrated and sometimes takes his frustration out on everyone, which can look extremely violent.

When the flock first gets up in the morning and comes outside, alot of times, the roosters are rarin' to go and ready for love! They act very very excited.

Basically, they just need to age, and practice and they will settle down. If he's extremely violent, then separating them is a good idea, and then you could always let them free range together, so the hens can get away from him if they need to.

Also, the pullets really won't want to mate until they're ready, and they learn too, to basically be still and get it over with, so there's not so much chasing, grabbing and pecking......Mating can be very rough looking with chickens.

It does get better, trust me. But there are some roosters that, in my opinion, are way too rough, so just keep your eye out.