Roo is attacking/chasing off older hens!

[Ks1063]

I have a large, brahma mix rooster just over a year old. He is attacking and chasing off my 3 older hens. The hens are only 2-3 years old, and one is the dominant hen. They are all free-range. Poor things don't want to come out of the coop in the morning. When they do come out, they hide from the rooster. He seems to like the 1-year-old hens. Do I need to put him the crock pot?

 

[sourland]

It may have started with a conflict with the dominant hen. Once such behavior starts, it generally does not go away. Frequently it escalates to the point where the hens are injured/killed.

 

[SamLockwood]

I have a large, brahma mix rooster just over a year old. He is attacking and chasing off my 3 older hens. The hens are only 2-3 years old, and one is the dominant hen. They are all free-range. Poor things don't want to come out of the coop in the morning. When they do come out, they hide from the rooster. He seems to like the 1-year-old hens. Do I need to put him the crock pot?

How dysfunctional your rooster is depends on how you integrated your younger birds.

It's normal for adult birds to regard younger birds as upstarts at first. Additionally, dominant hens in hen-only flocks tend to take on some rooster roles such as leading thethe flock, playing lookout, and so on.


If you raised the younger rooster and hens together and waited until they were at or near their full growth to integrate them, this situation is inevitable: pullets are extremely submissive and tend to let cockerels push them around. This leads to a cockerel with no patience for normal hen behavior, like your adult birds refusing to mate or pay attention to him when he tries to herd them.

If you integrated them earlier, say starting with "look, don't touch" at 3 to 4 weeks old for the youngsters and graduating to physical integration at 5 to 8 weeks old, then you may have a problematic rooster. Generally if you integrate cockerels earlier the adults beat some manners into them, and if the rooster hasn't figured out how to get along with the flock in 8 months or so it's probably not going to happen.

In any case, this situation is only going to escalate until one of three things happen: the alpha hen submits, the rooster kills her, or the adult hens gang up on the rooster and kill him.

So it depepnds on your exact situation and how badly you want to keep this rooster.

 

[Ks1063]

How dysfunctional your rooster is depends on how you integrated your younger birds.

It's normal for adult birds to regard younger birds as upstarts at first. Additionally, dominant hens in hen-only flocks tend to take on some rooster roles such as leading thethe flock, playing lookout, and so on.


If you raised the younger rooster and hens together and waited until they were at or near their full growth to integrate them, this situation is inevitable: pullets are extremely submissive and tend to let cockerels push them around. This leads to a cockerel with no patience for normal hen behavior, like your adult birds refusing to mate or pay attention to him when he tries to herd them.

If you integrated them earlier, say starting with "look, don't touch" at 3 to 4 weeks old for the youngsters and graduating to physical integration at 5 to 8 weeks old, then you may have a problematic rooster. Generally if you integrate cockerels earlier the adults beat some manners into them, and if the rooster hasn't figured out how to get along with the flock in 8 months or so it's probably not going to happen.

In any case, this situation is only going to escalate until one of three things happen: the alpha hen submits, the rooster kills her, or the adult hens gang up on the rooster and kill him.

So it depepnds on your exact situation and how badly you want to keep this rooster.

For the first 3 weeks, I kept momma hen & chicks separate. The rooster could see them but couldn't get in the enclosure. Then I let hen & chicks out to free-range with the flock. I suppose I've got to do something with roo. Thanks for the info.