Roo' Behavor

[Shadrach]

Interesting. I never hand feed and I've never encountered aggression. However I do regularly see many people on BYC that hand feed roosters and then start getting attacked shortly thereafter

I think part of the problem is some people think they are seeing aggression when in fact it's nothing of the sort.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

Interesting. I never hand feed and I've never encountered aggression. However I do regularly see many people on BYC that hand feed roosters and then start getting attacked shortly thereafter

I’ve hand fed both my roosters. The first one attacked me and the second one didn’t . I don’t have a lot of rooster experience, but it makes me wonder if each rooster is just going to be his own rooster, and do his own rooster thing, regardless of how us humans interact with them.

 

[Red Mangrove]

I’ve hand fed both my roosters. The first one attacked me and the second one didn’t . I don’t have a lot of rooster experience, but it makes me wonder if each rooster is just going to be his own rooster, and do his own rooster thing, regardless of how us humans interact with them.

My only other animal experience with hand feeding is goats. I raised one baby boy on a bottle and he became extremely aggressive as an adult. He literally attacked my wife from behind and tried raping her suddenly out of nowhere. My daughter came running and screaming to me that mom needed help, but when I got there my wife had already made the goat pass out in a headlock

We try to always be compassionate to our animals, but despite this he specifically tried to murder me perhaps a dozen times. I would usually just pick him up over my head to scare him and establish dominance, but it never worked completely. The next day he would again be murderous, until the one day where he eventually became soup

Later on another farmer told me "never bottle raise boys" because it makes the boy think they're human, or that you're a goat. It confuses them, and later as adults they'll try to attack or mate with you

I never wanted to bottle raise an animal in the first place (this all occured under odd circumstances), and if I had known this I never would have. Perhaps some similar principle is at play with roosters

 

[Badger Farm]

Hand feeding roosters is considered submissive behavior in the minds of chickens. This results in human directed aggression the majority of the time, when the rooster starts trying to control your behavior

So, no more hand feeding Msited Velcro I’ll push him away from me when I hand feed the girls. Thank you!

 

[fluffycrow]

So, no more hand feeding Msited Velcro I’ll push him away from me when I hand feed the girls. Thank you!

I'd...reconsider. I propose a different strategy. Everything goes through the lead male. Only hand feed him, and if he lets the girls join then they join

 

[Badger Farm]

I'd...reconsider. I propose a different strategy. Everything goes through the lead male. Only hand feed him, and if he lets the girls join then they join

I hand feed them all at the same time. It’s first come, first served, and I usually do this with when I get home from work. I will gently push him away to make roo. For the girls.

 

[Red Mangrove]

So, no more hand feeding Msited Velcro I’ll push him away from me when I hand feed the girls. Thank you!

Some people here told me that rooster aggression is probably caused by roosters imprinting on humans as chicks. That seems more likely in retrospect, meaning hand feeding may or not be okay depending on the bird and situation. It also perfectly explains all of the aggressive animals I've encountered so far

None of the broody raised roosters I've had have shown human aggression. Only human imprinted roosters