Rooster behavior

Renee185

Hatching
Jul 4, 2024
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We have a new flock with 1 rooster. He has always been the most timid check, afraid of everthing. Now that he is older, 18 weeks he is aggressive towards the hens. Bites them, runs after them to bite.is this normal behavior? He’s still young, as we don’t see the protective behavior yet.
 
How many girls and how old are they?
Sounds like pretty normal behavior for a teenage cockerel especially if he doesn't have any older hens or a older rooster to teach him some manners.
If he's with same age pullets, he's learning all this on his own. Cockerels mature much faster than pullets, he's wanting to mate and the pullets don't know what's going on until they get close to point of lay.
If you see he him getting too overly aggressive you could separate him from them until they all are laying. Another option is only letting him free range with them during his non peak mate times (morning and night).
 
How many girls and how old are they?
Sounds like pretty normal behavior for a teenage cockerel especially if he doesn't have any older hens or a older rooster to teach him some manners.
If he's with same age pullets, he's learning all this on his own. Cockerels mature much faster than pullets, he's wanting to mate and the pullets don't know what's going on until they get close to point of lay.
If you see he him getting too overly aggressive you could separate him from them until they all are laying. Another option is only letting him free range with them during his non peak mate times (morning and night).
They are all the same age, 17 weeks.
 
Being a rooster.

Charles and his flock of seven hens have been together since they were born. Charles was always more submissive than his brother Henry. I adopted out Henry because of fighting. The same day Henry was adopted Charles reordered the flock. He now crows. (All freaking day). He is very protective of his girls. And he started charging me. (It has been two months sincd the adopting out btw).

I always allow chickens ti be chickens up to a point. So once I realized he was charging me and not just following me I re-established that I am the boss. What I have observed is that his is in my estimation doing his job. When I went in today with their daily treats etc all the girls were in the yard. He came over as did everyone else but no aggressiveness. I sat for 20 minutes (freezing but did). The girls came over. several jumped up with me on the bench. When they did that he came over and jumped up. No aggression but I could see he was watching. He charges me most of the time when I go in the coop. Finally I realized that happens almost exclusively when there is a hen in a nestbox. Today I went in when everyone was out and nothing.

So my question for those of you with way more experience than I - is this Charles trying to protect his girls? To make sure I know he is there and he is in charge? Are my observations valid or wishful thinking?
 

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