Rooster attacking broody hen and her chick

[Pigeony]

Roosters should be protective of chicks and their broodies, not aggressive to them. My rooster has not ever been actively mean or aggressive to any chick, even introduced ones who did not have a broody to protect them. He feeds chicks and looks out for them, that's what good roosters do. You have a bad rooster if he's attacking broodies and chicks and that behavior shouldn't be tolerated.

 

[Mrs. K]

I am wondering how old is the chick. Or rather how long were they separate from the flock. Maybe this is not what the poster did, but sometimes in order to keep a chick 'safe' people separate them fore 4-6 weeks when the hormones of the broody hen are starting to fall. That makes reintroduction difficult. I leave mine with the flock from the get go.

I will keep the pullets separated from the flock until they are laying age but the cockerels will join the flock at the same time as the broody hen weans them (4-5 weeks)

I am surprised at this. And of course, each of us think of our own coop and set up when we consider things.

I would let the broody chicken out with her chicks within days of their hatching, and at 5-6 weeks - I would pull the cockerels and leave the pullets. They will be a sub flock, but will be fine, if you have enough room.

Currently I have two cockerels, getting close to 10 weeks? Still in the flock. They are not being a problem yet, when they are, that is when I pull them.

Mrs K

 

[McChooky]

I am wondering how old is the chick. Or rather how long were they separate from the flock. Maybe this is not what the poster did, but sometimes in order to keep a chick 'safe' people separate them fore 4-6 weeks when the hormones of the broody hen are starting to fall. That makes reintroduction difficult. I leave mine with the flock from the get go.

I am surprised at this. And of course, each of us think of our own coop and set up when we consider things.

I would let the broody chicken out with her chicks within days of their hatching, and at 5-6 weeks - I would pull the cockerels and leave the pullets. They will be a sub flock, but will be fine, if you have enough room.

Currently I have two cockerels, getting close to 10 weeks? Still in the flock. They are not being a problem yet, when they are, that is when I pull them.

Mrs K

I can't release my broody in the flock with chicks unless I lock them all up in a run.My neighbors got a lot of wild predators he feeds (literally) and one of them is a fox

 

[McChooky]

Free ranging her with chicks without electric fencing or tall fences isn't a good idea.Especially this young

 

[Waterfaery]

Is finding him a new home an option? Do they free range or are they kept in a run?

No, I couldn't give him away. He's my only bantam rooster. I have plenty of space and other flocks so I will have to do some temporary rearranging.

They are pastured, so they are within a 50m long electric fence which we move around so they have fresh ground.

 

[Waterfaery]

Roosters should be protective of chicks and their broodies, not aggressive to them. My rooster has not ever been actively mean or aggressive to any chick, even introduced ones who did not have a broody to protect them. He feeds chicks and looks out for them, that's what good roosters do.

Yes, this has been my experience as well with other roosters. So far, they have all been amazing and even, like yours, taking in chicks without a broody. That's why this one is such a shock.

 

[Waterfaery]

I am wondering how old is the chick. Or rather how long were they separate from the flock. Maybe this is not what the poster did, but sometimes in order to keep a chick 'safe' people separate them fore 4-6 weeks when the hormones of the broody hen are starting to fall. That makes reintroduction difficult. I leave mine with the flock from the get go.

I am surprised at this. And of course, each of us think of our own coop and set up when we consider things.

I would let the broody chicken out with her chicks within days of their hatching, and at 5-6 weeks - I would pull the cockerels and leave the pullets. They will be a sub flock, but will be fine, if you have enough room.

Currently I have two cockerels, getting close to 10 weeks? Still in the flock. They are not being a problem yet, when they are, that is when I pull them.

Mrs K

I'm afraid this is probably the problem.

We have foxes here and we also have cats. My strategy until now has always been to leave the broody and chicks in the smaller enclosure until the chicks are too big to fit through the electric fence. It's usually just a couple of weeks.

Any time I've done this before, it's worked seamlessly and the chicks have all been welcome in the flock. Any cockerels have happily stayed until they start crowing or sometimes longer if they show submission to the dominant rooster.

However, these birds are bantams and the chick is half bantam, so it's only just big enough now but it's 4 weeks old. The broody is still very broody and caring for the chick but I wonder if the chick is too old for the rooster to bond with.

They have been visible to each other the whole time and the rooster had spent a lot of time close to the broody run, talking to the broody and chick in the first week or so and even sharing food through the mesh. He has since lost interest but I assumed they had already bonded early on and that would be that, but obviously not.

I guess I don't know for sure if the age is the problem but it seems like a strong theory and it's a good lesson for the future.

 

[Waterfaery]

Thanks so much for the replies. I tried them together again briefly and it didn't go well. He wasn't mean to the hen this time, thankfully, but he was really trying to drive the chick away. I'm trying to decide on my options now.

1. I have another four chicks in a brooder who are 3 weeks old and will be moving out this week. I could try gently merging this chick with them.

I did actually try to get this broody to take them the day they hatched but she rejected them so I just left her with her single chick, who was almost a week old at that point. So a merge with them would probably mean separating the chick from the broody, which I'm reluctant to do. I don't think there's any hope of merging them all now while the hen is still broody but maybe I'm wrong?

2. I currently have one flock of hens with no rooster. I could leave the broody and chick with her flock and temporarily put the rooster in with the other flock until the chick is weaned. Then merge the chick with my brooder chicks before putting the rooster back with his original flock.

3. I could leave the broody and chick separated from the flock until she weans the chick, then merge the chick with the other chicks and leave the broody to merge back with her flock on her own.

4. I could redivide the electric fence to create two zones, with the rooster on one side and the rest of the flock including the broody and chick on the other. Then give them short supervised times together to see if he will gradually accept the chick. Maybe it's unlikely but is it worth a try?

None of these seem ideal but I'd be so grateful for any opinions on which might be best or any alternatives I haven't thought of. I'd really like to do whatever would cause the least amount of stress to them.

 

[Altairsky]

If you can't find any good reason in your setup to justify his behavior, it means that that rooster is rotten and should not breed. We should breed for good birds that are doing their best to pass their genes, not for jerks who tries to extinct themselves.
A rooster that attacks his own chicks and his own girls is not tolerable. There are so many good roosters who need a good home, there are zero reasons to keep a rotten one and breed more chickens with these bad genes.
This said, my own, so far perfect rooster got an inch from getting culled on the spot after permanently crippling one of his own 3 day old kids and killing another one.
I saw from the window the rooster, grabbing one chick while the broody hen was distracted, shaking it like a dog, and tossing it in the air. I penned the chicks and had to go to work, and when I came home, I found another chick out of the pen, flat dead. Certainly this is rooster's doing.
I was so furious and ready to kill that rooster when someone on this forum suggested me to think 10 times before killing such good rooster.
So I tried to get inside the mind of this rooster and I tried to understand his reasoning behind what he did, if there was any... And I realized it was all my fault.
Due to my setup, chicks younger than 6 days tend to get stuck either outside or inside the coop.
The broody hen was not experienced so that might also be a factor to her losing chicks here and there.
The chick that the rooster crippled was stuck outside the coop and couldn't get in, and the one that got killed managed to escape the pen that I didn't secure enough, and got stuck out of the pen away from his mother.
When a chick starts getting agitated, and the mother gets agitated, the flock also gets agitated, and the rooster has the duty to stop agitation and keep peace in the flock. The only way the rooster had to stop the agitation was to make the agitated chick shut up, by killing it. Better a chick dead by rooster than his whole harem dead by a fox. He can always make more chicks in his reasoning, which is perfectly coherent with nature's law. Losing a chick is not as bad as losing a laying hen. It's probably a defense mechanism to not attract predators, because a screaming chick and an agitated flock is obviously a predator magnet.
So yeah, I fixed my setup and never had this problem again. Since then, my rooster has been wonderful with both chicks and broodies.

 

[McChooky]

I am wondering how old is the chick. Or rather how long were they separate from the flock. Maybe this is not what the poster did, but sometimes in order to keep a chick 'safe' people separate them fore 4-6 weeks when the hormones of the broody hen are starting to fall. That makes reintroduction difficult. I leave mine with the flock from the get go.

I am surprised at this. And of course, each of us think of our own coop and set up when we consider things.

I would let the broody chicken out with her chicks within days of their hatching, and at 5-6 weeks - I would pull the cockerels and leave the pullets. They will be a sub flock, but will be fine, if you have enough room.

Currently I have two cockerels, getting close to 10 weeks? Still in the flock. They are not being a problem yet, when they are, that is when I pull them.

Mrs K

Thank you Mrs K ! I took your advice and opened the divided run so the flock can meet the chicks .Its sounds like they're having a party out there (the rooster is calling the chicks for treats) Meanwhile one of the eggs left in the nest hatched in the incubator while ago so now she has 5 .I'll sneak it under her soon as it dries.