Is he actually attacking your hen or is he merely overzealous in his mating? If he is attacking her you need to seperate him, if he is just hormonal you might try a saddle on her. It seems like at the beginning the young roosters have surging hormones. For some reason they go crazy for my rhode island reds.
I do the opposite of Mrs K. Though I respect her position. When animals are just for food then you don't act the same as when they are pets.
Both my roosters started showing signs of aggressiveness at 5-6months. They posture themselves different and the look in their eye is different. The one who imprinted on me was upset any time I crowed. So I spent a day of training with him crowing once and calming him down, then repeat. That was all he needed.
His brother is a different story. He started attacking me randomly when I wasn't paying attention. He went so far as to fly at my face, obviously trying to attack my eyes and made a cut across my nose. He has drawn blood with his bites many times. Now, even though I am new to roosters (they are currently 1.5years) this didn't really deter me cause I had had a hen who had the same temperment. Every day when I let her out she would run out happily, then stop, turn around and run back to bite me really hard on the shin. Then run off again. I would often hear 'thump, thump, thump' as she would run up behind be to bite my calf. So this was merely the male version of that. I like to think of it as the sneak attack personality.
For him I tried pushing him to the ground. It didn't work, he would keep coming back more aggressive. I tried crowing and pinning him. Didn't work. I tried intimidation by standing erect and looming over him without bending over. This stopped current attacks. I tried advancing towards him or chasing him. This helped in that he was skiddish of me, but when he would become comfortable around me he would start attacking me again.
Eventually I tried a new tactic. I turned him on his back and cradled him like a baby. I did this all the time. He hated it. So undignified! I stopped all aggressive tactics and did this instead. He started calming down. More and more the longer I did this. His stance became less aggressive and the look in his eye changed.
But since he is on top of the pecking order, I think he just wanted to duel somebody. I started doing gentle kicks with my boots around him body and he would attack the bottom of my boots. This would get him wound up and he would start attacking again.
Then my brother started dueling with him barefoot. He still does this. He literally goes out to the yard and the rooster sees him at a distance, runs over and tugs on his pant leg cause he wants to duel. My brother does a bunch or little kicks with his feet and taps the rooster on the chest gently. The rooster seems to know it is just for fun and jumps up and down and pecks his feet, but much more gently than in the past. As for me. If the rooster pecks me I gently hold his waddles. He used to really struggle, now he just goes still. And alls good.
Obviously, I would not recommend dueling your rooster. It was just something fun that has evolved as his exercise program. We do monitor his mood though to make sure he isn't getting too wound up. As for the hormonal sex drive, it seems to have mellowed with time.
Note: I would trust the first rooster around kids, the second rooster I wouldn't, but I don't think that your rooster is that bad. I would go for more interaction, though taking the hen out of the equation would make calming him easier. I agree with the Moonshiner. You were getting in the middle of something he really wanted. Even if he likes you, there are limits to what behavior he will tolerate from you.
After all, even human kids rebel when you get in the way of something they really want.
