RIR Roo goes after daughter....suggestions

[Tressa27884]

Ok - so other than Freezer Camp. I can give him away, but......

This morning, my fairly young RIR Roo went after my two year old daughter. His spurs have been removed so he didn't do much damage [a fairly good scrape to one arm], and he literally got the crap kicked out of him for his effort. My DH scooped her up and I chased the roo around and kicked him every chance I got.....is there anything I can do to curb this behavior. I am aware that I can manage the behavior and not have him / DD together, but I don't want to do that? As it stands right now I'll place him somewhere else this week; I would like to keep him though if I can correct the behavior...

Thoughts?

 

[justbugged]

It sounds like you really need to re-home him or send him to freezer camp. The last thing you should want is for your daughter to become scared of birds. I can relate it was a lot of years before I got over my fear of birds. There is still a part of me that is leery of anything that flies towards me. It won't matter if you can scare the roo. He might be able to respect you, but your daughter will still stay fair game to the roo no matter what you do.

RIR roos can be very aggressive, and I have yet to meet a chicken that can be truly trained to not behave the way that nature intended them too. The roo is going to protect the hens, even to the point of giving up his life for the flock.

 

[dainerra]

Most of the theories have to be carried out by everyone in the family. That means that your daughter would have to do them as well.

Honestly, there are too many friendly roos in the world to mess with one that will attack people. Also, temperament and aggression are often genetic. So any eggs hatched from an aggressive roo have a greater likelihood of being aggressive themselves.

 

[sourland]

Whatever suggestions you may get is it worth keeping a rooster who conceivably might cause serious damage to your daughter?

 

[bobbi-j]

You could skip the freezer and send him right to the crockpot...

There are lots of good recipes out there, and lots of nicer roosters, too. It's not worth your little girl's health and well-being to keep a mean one around. Do you really want her to grow up being afraid of chickens because of a bad rooster? By giving him away, you're either giving someone else your problem, or giving someone else a nice chicken dinner. (Personally, after investing my time, money and feed, I'd rather eat it myself than throw away everything I put into it) If you don't want to know, don't ask when you give him away. In my book those are your two options: eat the thing or give it away.

 

[Tressa27884]

Thanks all! In my head I had all ready decided that he had to go, just thought I'd check to see if this was correctable behavior or not. I absolutely will NOT risk my daughter being hurt again! She loves the hen and loves to collect eggs. I promised her it wouldn't happen again and it won't.

Thanks again!
Tressa

 

[Tressa27884]

Update - the rooster is gone.....but why did nobody tell me about "rooster math"? He left and I came home with three. So far all the boys are sweet and getting along well. One is crowing a bit too much for my neighborhood, so I may have to swap him out for another......

 

[Beekissed]

just thought I'd check to see if this was correctable behavior or not.

It is correctable behavior and he only showed one act of aggression as a fairly young roo..which is pretty common if the bird hasn't already been trained while growing up.​