rooster behavior problems

[abikalyss]

This is the closest category I found to my question sorry if it's wrong. I have a beautiful rooster, I raised him from a baby took great care of him like all my chickens and handled him enough to keep him tame. The rest of my chickens I can walk up to and pick up and pet, they'll even come to me, but this rooster seems to hate me and only me. He attacks me every day and is extremely violent to the point he'll occasionally hurt himself to try to attack me (and again ONLY me). What went wrong? What should I do?

 

[abikalyss]

I have 38 birds, 10 are roosters. And its only him that acts so violently towards me.

 

[Beekissed]

This is the closest category I found to my question sorry if it's wrong. I have a beautiful rooster, I raised him from a baby took great care of him like all my chickens and handled him enough to keep him tame. The rest of my chickens I can walk up to and pick up and pet, they'll even come to me, but this rooster seems to hate me and only me. He attacks me every day and is extremely violent to the point he'll occasionally hurt himself to try to attack me (and again ONLY me). What went wrong? What should I do?

Could be he's the only one that was affected by the imprinting you did when he was a chick. It's best to not hand feed, nurture or otherwise imprint on male birds.....the tales of "hand tamed" cockerels who turn on their caregiver when reaching an age of sexual maturity are legion on BYC. He's just very confused by his earlier imprinting and you may or may not be able to reverse his behavior...time to remove him from your flock. You have too many roosters for the amount of hens you have anyway, so it might be a good idea to remove all but 2 of these roosters or you will start to see some hens with bald backs from overbreeding. Not a good thing.

http://www.usask.ca/wcvm/herdmed/applied-ethology/Bottle-raised males can be very dangerous.pdf

Quote:

caretaker or other humans? First off, all

avian and mammalian neonates are born with a preprogrammed drive to imprint onto
their mother. Imprinting refers to a critical
period of time early in the animal’s life when
it forms attachments and develops a concept
of its own species’ identity. Imprinting
provides animals with information about who they are and for males it determines
specifically who they will find attractive when they reach sexual maturity. Only a few
species like cow birds and cuckoos
, that are essentially parasites in another bird’s nest,
can be reared by surrogate parents and ge
t things “right” when they reach sexual
maturity. The famous German ethologist, K
onrad Lorenz demonstrated the imprinting
process in goslings and ducklings and showed
that in the absence of their real mothers
these precocial birds would imprin
t onto their human care taker.
Imprinting has long lasting and important bi
ological and psychological effects on adult
sexual behaviour, which is often irreversible
. Males that have been imprinted onto
another species tend to court th
e surrogate species that raised them.

Quote:

misdirected attraction, he will ha

ve bouts of male aggression
that he will direct against
his human “competition”. Male aggression is a normal part of sexual behaviour

 

[abikalyss]

We keep roosters separate from hens except the ones we want to breed (to prevent inbreeding) no hens are getting over bred. And does this problem happen before sexual maturity?

 

[Beekissed]

We keep roosters separate from hens except the ones we want to breed (to prevent inbreeding) no hens are getting over bred. And does this problem happen before sexual maturity?

Most start to notice the increased aggression around the time the cockerel is 5-6 mo. of age and beyond.