Rooster attacked and pecked my child.

[19hhbelgian]

I agree... Give him a chance to become acclimated with his new home, and all the movement that is going to be going on around him. Just because he's good with kids at his old home, doesn't mean he will be perfectly fine right away at his new home. Everything is different, and he is seriously out of his element... He doesn't feel secure in his surroundings yet. Give him some time... Hope it works out for you!

 

[big red chicken]

I had the exact same thing to happen to (then) my 3 yr. old. Longhorn rooster jumped at my daughter several times. It is not recommend for a child so little to be around them. First I held him as long as I could, that didn't work so then I started carring something in my hand at all times. (when she was around) Finally he got the pic. don't mess with that little Miss. Princesses cause my mom is going to get me.

So keep tring, if it doesn't change get rid of him, cause I have heard some pretty scarey stories on rooster attacks! Good Luck

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Well the jumping rooster story is different from just the pecking rooster story. I am a large adult and I wouldn't go in my coop with flip flops, because they are birds and even my hens will peck if they are greedy enough.
I have a 2 year old.....my 5th born child. I have had chickens since before I ever had a single child. You can't expect a small child to be around a rooster unless a wary parent is right there. A peck is not an attack. If he jumps on her.....thats an attack. You either have to remove the child or get rid of the dangerous roo.
I was chased by a rooster when I was 8 years old and my dad killed it and my mom cooked it. I was very embarrassed. But I wanted to be able to handle them and I forced myself to handle them eventually.
It is unfortunate that the peck was on a child, but it could have easily been you. I really think in this case, you just need to keep the child's hand in your's and limit the time she spends in the coop. Its not really a place to play. I don't consider them to be pets. They are livestock.

 

[speckledhen]

No matter how docile a rooster is usually, a child with their jerky and sudden movements can trigger an attack, so really, IMO, NO young child should be allowed to be in an enclosure with a rooster or be around a rooster unless the child or the rooster is being held for petting or something of that nature. A small child is the size/height of many predators and that may factor into a rooster's reaction to him/her and as well, the eyes of a child are just about the right height to be taken out by an attacking rooster. So, no small kids around roosters, period, in my view.

 

[mountaintopchicken]

No matter how docile a rooster is usually, a child with their jerky and sudden movements can trigger an attack, so really, IMO, NO young child should be allowed to be in an enclosure with a rooster or be around a rooster unless the child or the rooster is being held for petting or something of that nature. A small child is the size/height of many predators and that may factor into a rooster's reaction to him/her and as well, the eyes of a child are just about the right height to be taken out by an attacking rooster. So, no small kids around roosters, period, in my view.

I 100% agree.​

 

[LRL]

I'm sorry to be a little off-topic here, but my FIL mentioned that chickens attack at children's eyes (and this is the first time I've seen a reference to this posted)... is this true of only roosters, or do hens exhibit this same behavior? Do they really go for the eyes of a child?

I'm slightly paranoid now.

 

[Camelot Farms]

Our roo pecked DD for the 1st time ever last week. This roo is a big barnyard type roo.

DD was at the barn and trying desperately to catch our other very friendly silkie mix roo. She finally snagged him by a leg and was reeling him in. He of course started to squawk. Pretty Boy heard him and came a running, I hollered 'let him go, hurry, let him go' just as Pretty Boy got there and WHAP. DD (age 8) got a peck on the arm.

As soon as she screamed, I hollered his name and he knew he was in deep trouble. He took off running in the other direction. It was comical once DD stopped crying.

I didnt put Pretty Boy in the freezer only because of the circumstance. He was doing exactly what I want him to do which is protect the flock. But, under other circumstance, I will be pullling out my chicken pot pie recipe.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

When my nephew was jumped, it took him from behind. I would think they would attack where they could. The eyes would have to be a small child and that would be ugly. Sorry you are paranoid, but I still have to say, free-range is good for some things, but there are drawbacks too. You risk your chickens lives and roos might attack under certain circumstances....such as too many roos, roo being too crowded, roo getting too old, someone causing a roo to be mean or other unexplained reasons. Penning them in, doesn't necessarily mean too much confinement or that they are all cooped up and deprived. I would imagine that I could fit about 1,000 chickens on the space I keep 66 birds. I say give them whatever you don't feel like taking the lawnmower to. But small children should not be mixing with these animals unsupervised. You are just asking for trouble, if you turn your back on it.

 

[evonne]

i would give the roo another chance...
first of all, you just brought him into a new environment.. he doesn't know his place yet..
second, he doesn't know your daughter is ahead of him in the pecking order.. the order has not been established yet for him

my roo gets cocky with people every now and again.. we all know how to handle it except my 4 yr old.. he's scared and runs.. which makes the situation worse.. but my boys all have varying lvls of autism.. my youngest one just can't do what needs to be done when the roo behaves like this... at least not right now.. os i wathc him closewhen he's out.. and he's warry of the roo now...
hubby thought i was lying about him trying to flog me and the kids until he did it to him... we all put him in his place imediatley.. and we don't spend enough time out there letting him know we're in charge.. so part of it is our fault....

another side note.. as far as the red...
i've noticed that the chickens pay a lot more attention to red things... so do the peacocks..
peacocks pick the red pieces out of the dog food first... and a mixed bag of leftover chips from a party... they ate all the flaming hot cheetos first.. lol....

i don't know where i got the information, or whether it's just something i subconsiously picked up on, but if i'm going somewhere where there's crowds, i put my kids in red shirts... sometimes bright orange... but specifically so they are easy to see in a crowd...

the color just pops out...

so yeah... give him another chance.. see if she's old enough to understand that she has to be the boss of him.. but the nice boss... i tell my 6 yr old that if blue comes around and his neck feathers are poofy, to stomp the ground near him and then run towards him to scare him... but never actually hit or kick the bird....

godd luck with him... maybe once he gets the new pecking order down there wont be anymore problems...

 

[IvaMiller]

we have chicks that we raised from an incubator. So even my 3 yr old has been with them constantly since they hatched. However, today he got pecked in the corner of his eye by one of the 2mo old chickens that one of my other children was holding. I think his eye will be ok but I got online to see what the dangers & hazards are of eyes being pecked by chickens. I appreciated reading this thread; I had no idea that it isn't a good idea for a little person to be around roosters. Since we share the same yard and the children often mingle with the chicks, I thought the chickens would be used to all of them, even the little ones. When I was a teenager, we had 1 hen that would raise chicks every year. Her rooster babies never bothered us, I guess I thought because they became used to us. We had bought a full-grown rooster with his flock that didn't like us girls (who always wore full skirts and no red) AT ALL. He chased and mauled us time after time until my older sister got sick of it and took the mop to him. Knocked him out briefly, but after he recovered, he NEVER chased us again. But we were all teens or close to it when we got chickens so I didn't have experience with little children around chickens. I will be keeping a close eye on children/chickens mingling from this point on!