Rooster behavior

[Mimi13]

I'm 74 if that helps you any.

Yes, yes it does. It tells me that chickens keep you young!

 

[centrarchid]

Humans are not special. I work with them every day when it comes to complexity of though in small scale social interactions.

 

[Shorty22366]

I have two roos, Ben and Butch. I had 9 roos out of 15 chicks I bought from a hatchery. I gave 7 away. 5 because they were VERY aggressive, two because I just didn't need that many roos. Back to Ben and Butch they are sweet most of the time. Sometimes they attack from behind. I catch them and hold them and don't put them down until the relax and stop growling. When I put them down I walk towards them and they get out of my way fast. Sometimes I pick them up by their feet and hold them like that for a few seconds. I hold and love on my hens all the time. My boys are not allowed to crow or mate when I am around. I even step between them when they are fighting to show them I am head chicken and they will not in control. You have to let them know you are boss and they have to respect you.

 

[Peeps61]

This is exactly the kind of thing I didn’t want to have to do. I want to be able to just freely walk in my yard and not have to give any thought to whether or not I’m being stalked. I guess I have just been spoiled by my hens. Now in come the boys to spoil the fun. And as I’ve said before, if it was just me, okay, get attacked, process next day. But I have 3 grandsons that I want to be able to move freely around the yard from playhouse to swingset to sandbox to pool. And I want my chickens to be able to roam freely around the yard from bug to worm to lord knows what else. Hopefully I’ll be able to have my cake and eat it too. But my grandchildren do come first.

One thing to think about might be a place where your grandkids can be and the chickens can't. For a couple of good reasons! Chickens poop on everything. I literally have had to throw away my outdoor shoes, which I put on and take off outside, away because the chickens have come to the back door looking for me/food and then pooped all over them, the mat and the walkway. Yuck! So, you don't want your grandkids' play equipment covered in chicken poop because if will happen eventually, if they take a liking to roosting on it. Another reason is that you don't have to worry about the roosters then, at least while the kids are in the chicken free zone. Personally, my roosters have never bothered young children, but I still don't trust the welfare of a little person to the daily attitude of a rooster. I'd devise a way to confine your roosters while your grandkids are at play and let them out afterwards or when you can supervise closely. My chickens are totally free range. They are locked in at night to prevent predation and then let out in the morning. JMHO.

 

[Peeps61]

I have had good luck with Easter eggers, Silkies, polish, and australorps to.

I had a beautiful buff laced polish rooster! In fact, my senior rooster is his son, the junior rooster his grandson and my little cockerel his great grandson. None of them are human aggressive, and the buff polish was not either. There is something to the genes!

 

[Peeps61]

I have five 10 week old cockerels: a Welsummer, SLW, NHR, and 2 Naked Necks. I only wanted the Welsummer and SLW roos and so far, knock on wood, they seem to be the two best ones. The other three were oops roos and my NHR pullet, whose name was Lucy, had to be renamed. And he earned the name Lucifer and will be the very first bird I process, with glee! While Lucy was a curious little chick, Lucifer appeared and was the devil himself. All of his devilish ways were evident at about 5-6 weeks. I will keep one of the NN’s, so those two boys will have to audition for me and I hope I choose the right one.

Ha ha! For me, Ella became Eli, then quickly began to be referred to as Satan. I thought he was a pullet, being an inexperienced chicken handler. I handled him quite a bit as a chick an I attribute that to his being so mean - no fear. Also, he was an Easter Egger, so they can be mean too. Any rooster, really. It just depends.

 

[Peeps61]

I can not make assessments on rooster behavior until they are nearly a year old. Some are more than a year old before being handling extensively. Others are handled starting at hatch. Start of handling does not appear to be important with respect to final outcome.

I should probably clarify that when I say "hands off" I mean that I don't cuddle them and I limit my handling to inspections and trimming of talons if needed so they don't hurt the hens' backs when mating with them. My personal outcomes have been better with limited handling.

 

[iroeldjoeldj]

I like having a rooster, but I don't like them to be aggressive. Mine is now happily living on his 1/2 acre with his 9 girls, and hasn't charged me since. Of course, if I want to be in that part of the yard, I lock them in their run (which is still 800 sq ft...so spacious) and do what I need to do. If he were to continually attack, the method I have used in the past to calm them down is to go in at night and hold them, put their head so they have to lower it which reminds them I am boss. I've also separated a rooster before when they were too mean to my girls, and left them in the separate cage for a week. Then, when they are reintroduced, they are lower in the pecking order, and seem to behave.

Phew...roosters are not easy, but they are worth it, as there is an amazing dynamic that happens between the hens and the rooster, that wouldn't occur otherwise.

 

[lcwmt]

Ringo takes the sun...
He is 14 weeks old, integrated nicely with the late March pullets and is tolerated by the big girls. He found his voice Memorial Day weekend and has been practicing on a regular basis.
He does not get handled and so far shows no signs of not knowing his place with anyone who lives here: human, canine, feline, or other poultry.....
All the chickens free range. As of a month ago both age groups roost together... He is usually the last one in.
Reading all the descriptions of bad rooster behavior does not worry me...

 

[Mimi13]

I have two roos, Ben and Butch. I had 9 roos out of 15 chicks I bought from a hatchery. I gave 7 away. 5 because they were VERY aggressive, two because I just didn't need that many roos. Back to Ben and Butch they are sweet most of the time. Sometimes they attack from behind. I catch them and hold them and don't put them down until the relax and stop growling. When I put them down I walk towards them and they get out of my way fast. Sometimes I pick them up by their feet and hold them like that for a few seconds. I hold and love on my hens all the time. My boys are not allowed to crow or mate when I am around. I even step between them when they are fighting to show them I am head chicken and they will not in control. You have to let them know you are boss and they have to respect you.

Another thing I don’t understand is the not crowing/mating in front of me. Now, I love to hear them crow and would welcome that. And as far as the mating goes, I wouldn’t stop our bull breeding our cows. Now I did, several years ago, stop (tried to stop) an old stray dog that got into our yard when our Springer Spaniel was in heat. Yeah, I wasn’t successful, BTW! So why would I not want to let the roo do one of his jobs that he’s there for? I guess that’s part of the rooster behavior that I do not understand.