I had an odd thought. And people who don't like odds are just going to have to deal. That's the way my brain works.
I see a lot of discussion over aggressive roosters, and most people are in the cull-first camp. In my opinion this is self-defeating, since by culling any rooster that shows signs of aggression you're eliminating the instincts that allow him to defend himself and his ladies. I won't go into the long term genetic stuff, there's just not enough room for that discussion.
The next group is the "Reforming an aggressive rooster may be possible but I don't know how," group, and as I see it those are the primary group who will be reading this.
The 3rd, group, of course, is those who know you can reform an aggressive rooster, have seen it done or done it themselves.
In my research I have seen documented cases of rescued fighting roosters that have been taught to have no aggression toward other birds. And the training is pretty straightforward, if time and labor intensive. Scientists have been able to train single celled animals all the way up, so I think "It can't be done" can be safely eliminated.
What I don't see is any discussion about what "reform" actually means. And reform probably is the wrong word, but we'll go with it in this instance.
The definitions of success in this kind of training appear to range from "I want a lap rooster" to "I'm OK with beating him back with a stick," and everything in between.
I am looking at essentially a wild animal, whose instinct is to fight and protect. I don't want to train him out of wanting to protect his family. I do want him to stop seeing me as a threat.
So what I am asking here is what would be your definition of success? If you decided, for whatever reason, that trying to train an aggressive rooster was worth the time and effort it takes, what would success look like?
