Rooster Attack!

[oceanjean]

Hi. My rooster Mark is always attacking me! Whenever I go within 20 feet of him he charges at me wildly and tries to attack me. Thankfully my other rooster Prince, always steps in to help me fend him off. Boy, the scars I would have if Prince wasn't around! Both roosters grew up together and they are both about one year old. Prince is an americauna and Mark is a silver laced wyndotte. one red star/golden sex-link hen, one rhode island red hen, one silver laced wyndotte hen, and two americana hens. I also have three rhode island red that are 4-5 weeks old, four light brahmas that are 2-3 weeks old, and a batch of two black australorps and one red star that are all 0-1 week old. The chicks that I just got are kept in the house to stay warm so the others have no idea that they even exist.

 

[DavidKerk]

I have a Silver Laced Wyandotte rooster also. He has attacked me a couple of times! I just give 'em a wack!

 

[oceanjean]

That's a good idea, but I am totally against animal cruelty. I do hit him when I get fed up, but only lightly. Does anyone else have suggestions?

 

[StelleKitten]

Well, from my own experience...

I had a rooster that had a bad temper. Attacked me and left scars. I tried the isolate him and handle him gently and kindly for three months. All I got from that was three more months worth of scars. I put him on a tie out because I didn't like him being alone. At least that way he could visit with his hens when they came around him but he couldn't attack me. I tried the pick him up and carry him around for 10 to 15 minutes. That didn't work for him either. I put an ad up to get rid of him and gave them one month. He was literally days away from going into a pot with some dumplings when a guy offered to take him. He wanted a roo that would defend his girls against people stealing them. Perfect home for him. I am now free of angry chicken.

The methods I spoke about, others have had work for them. They did not in my case. My roo was really hard headed. I was still sad when he left but it's so much nicer to tend the chickens now.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Life is too short to keep a nasty rooster.

You said you are against animal cruelty--think of it this way. You can try to reform your rooster, but many of the methods described will feel cruel to you, because they are meant to talk to the rooster in chicken language. In a chickens world, the pecking order is extremely important and is all about the fact that the biggest, strongest chicken is the boss. That means flogging, pecking, even killing is normal in the rooster's world. The chicken can't understand your language, and there is no compromise in the chicken world--there is only a winner and a loser, and the loser either submits or dies.

If you rooster is flogging you, he doesn't respect you. He either believes that you are subordinate to him, and he's flogging you to get you to submit to his authority, or he believes that you are a weak alpha rooster and he can back you down and be #1 himself.

Since a rooster can do permanent damage (see the description of scars, above), you need to either try to rehab this rooster by methods that may seem cruel to you, or you need to get rid of him. And if you try to rehab him and you fail, you'll still need to get rid of him. This is much more urgent if you have any children that come anywhere near the rooster, because they are shorter and rooster attacks come much nearer their faces--I have a friend with a scar on his eye from a rooster attack when he was young, and he's very lucky he didn't lose his eye.

After you rehome him, you can adopt another rooster. There are many thousands of sweet roosters that are killed every day just because someone can't keep them all. You could save a life by adopting one of these. If you watch Craig's List, you'll see lots of roosters there. Two of my three roosters were given to me for free, and they are both purebreds from a breeder.

Good luck.

 

[Steamdemon]

At first if you don't succeed, Shove them out of the way using a broom.

 

[DavidKerk]

That's a good idea, but I am totally against animal cruelty. I do hit him when I get fed up, but only lightly. Does anyone else have suggestions?

It doesn't need to be that hard, just hard enough to get the point across. You should also not let him mate with a hen in front of you because a dominant rooster won't let a subordinate rooster mate in when he's around. I hope you can get him nicer! It is never easy to get rid of a chicken even if it is mean!

 

[Rowdie]

I don't have any roos these days, but growing up we had some nasty birds. I never remember reforming one. There's a couple tales of my dad attempting some reform options, but they never worked. Well shotgun reform worked depending on how you define worked.

My memory of the roos was that they had much longer spurs than what I see in pictures from today's roos or see on an expo/fair/show. What I see today are tiny lil bumps compared to the spurs in my memory. Is this an actual thing? spurs shrinking perhaps do to some selective breeding, or is it just the warped recollection of a school kid? Partly I wonder because there's some comments about roos not being able to do real damage, but I want to call shananagans on that take. They drew blood and not just on smaller kids, drew blood on grown men, but if todays roos have significantly smaller spurs maybe it's not as much of a concern any more.

And I want to add one to the list of why the roo might be attacking you... sees you as a threat.

Final lil FYI, I don't currently own any rooster not because of any of this. I just haven't purchased one lately, and the last three or four met their maker doing their job, an impressive barred rock, two not that impressive somethings or anothers, and a lil banny that got worked to death by the hens.

 

[lghrnlvr]

The first group of chickens i had included an old English game rooster. he had spurs that were 2 1-2 inches long. overtime i went into the run he would attack me. after a few weeks of that i caught him and used dog toenail clippers to cut his spurs of short and a lighter to cauterize them.
sounds cruel but i still have scars from him 5 years later. after i cut his spurs he still jumped me but i no longer had to worry about injuries

 

[DavidKerk]

I don't have any roos these days, but growing up we had some nasty birds. I never remember reforming one. There's a couple tales of my dad attempting some reform options, but they never worked. Well shotgun reform worked depending on how you define worked.

My memory of the roos was that they had much longer spurs than what I see in pictures from today's roos or see on an expo/fair/show. What I see today are tiny lil bumps compared to the spurs in my memory. Is this an actual thing? spurs shrinking perhaps do to some selective breeding, or is it just the warped recollection of a school kid? Partly I wonder because there's some comments about roos not being able to do real damage, but I want to call shananagans on that take. They drew blood and not just on smaller kids, drew blood on grown men, but if todays roos have significantly smaller spurs maybe it's not as much of a concern any more.

And I want to add one to the list of why the roo might be attacking you... sees you as a threat.

Final lil FYI, I don't currently own any rooster not because of any of this. I just haven't purchased one lately, and the last three or four met their maker doing their job, an impressive barred rock, two not that impressive somethings or anothers, and a lil banny that got worked to death by the hens.

Most likely, the reason you see smaller spurs on roosters now is that many people trim them, however, I haven't trimmed my rooster's spurs ever and they are not even and inch long. He's only around a year old so maybe they'll grow more! How long do you recall your rooster's spurs being?