Rooster attacked and injured hen

[likepuppy14]

I have 1 rooster (a silkie) and 7 hens. My rooster and 3 of my hens are all a little over a year old. My other hens are between 3-5 years old. I’ve been able to watch my rooster court the hens that are his age and he mostly ignores the older ones except for the occasional peck. However yesterday, as I went to clean the coop I found one of my oldest hens (an Azure) hiding inside with what appeared to be a missing eye. I’ve been nursing her back to health and she seems to be doing okay. The problem is that when the rooster came in to the run (I free range them) he immediately jumped at the injured hen and it looked like he spurred her in the eye.

I have her separated now so she can continue to recover. My question is, what would make him attack her in this way? Most of what I’ve read online pertains to aggressive mating, but that’s not what this was.

I don’t really want to get rid of him, because he hasn’t shown this kind of aggression to any of the other birds before.

 

[sourland]

Very likely the hen has resisted his mating attempts. She may even have fought him. It is unlikely that he will accept her back into the flock. Watch to make sure he does not start this behavior with another hen.

 

[LaFleche]

A rooster should never attack the hens in his flock and even less injure them severely.

If he does not like one hen/the senior hen (s) do not accept him, he should just ignore her/them.

Your senior hen was right to not accept this rooster as his behaviour is rather anti-social.

A rooster that is attacking one or several of my senior hens will not live to see the next day.

 

[Ridgerunner]

My take is a little different. I had a cockerel raised in a flock with no dominant male but a dominant hen. That dominant hen kept him submissive to her until he was about 11 months old. Some of the other hens would let him mate but if that dominant hen saw him mating another she's run over and knock him off. And of course, she would never submit to him.

He finally matured to the point that he had enough backbone that he stood up to her. He finally decided he was going to be flockmaster. So they fought and he won. For two days he would not let her near the flock. If she got too close he'd run her off. Neither one was injured in those fights so I let them go. After two days they stopped fighting and they became best buddies. She no longer attacked him and let him mate her. It worked out for me.

Yours has been injured. I don't know if they will ever be able to work it out without one of them (her) dying. In your situation I'd probably choose which one I wanted to keep.

For what it is worth, that cockerel was one of the worse flock masters I ever had. I think his dominant spirit was so weak he had to rely on violence to intimidate the rest of the flock instead of the magnificence of his self-confidence. Instead of 11 months most of my cockerels take over as flock master around 7 months and usually with a very peaceful takeover.

 

[likepuppy14]

Thank you everyone for your input! I’ve been monitoring them today as they’ve been free ranging and the rooster is ignoring the hen. She laid an egg like usual this morning and she’s been hanging around the rest of the flock in peace. I plan to still keep her separate tonight when they all come in to roost.

I’ve never considered her to be a dominant hen and he’s never been aggressive before. Is it possible they can live in harmony?