Rooster behavior

[Th3moth3rcluck3r]

I assume I have enough pullets to my roo. I have 7 pullets, and 1 roo for my backyard flock.

I've read many many threads on here, and I keep seeing where friendly roos will flip on their owners. I am still new to this. He is about 16 wks old, so still young. At what age will you see their true colors? Right now, he's literally a dog in a chicken body. Well mannered, keeps his distance unless you allow him in your space. He will let you pick him up without putting up a fight. We don't really seek to pick him up but there have been times I've needed to handle him. He's alert, and still learning the ropes on how to chicken. The breed is easter egger. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what to keep an eye out for.

 

[Ponypoor]

With my boys it’s usually once they start the breed the hens. I have had them start that as early as 18 weeks.

My 2 Roos (dad and son) got along really well until about 2 weeks ago, then they started fighting. Youngster is 8 months old. But he is still good with people, stays away, doesn’t came at people, stays with the hens.

Each is different. Just keep an eye on your boy.

 

[Tonyroo]

It's between 1 and 2 years of age if they will flip. To keep him docile make your presence known everyday. When he starts mating with the hens. Giving him a worthy treat for him to give to the hens will improve your relationship with the rooster. Once a week of this conditioning method is a good start.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've read many many threads on here, and I keep seeing where friendly roos will flip on their owners

You can read a lot of different things on this forum. Each situation is unique. Some people would have you think that every cockerel is a demon in waiting, they can really frighten you. That certainly can happen but a lot of them aren't bad at all. You can read a lot of rules on how you are supposed to handle a cockerel to keep him from going bad. A lot of those posts are contradictory. It is hard to know what to believe.

In my opinion, some cockerels are destined to be brutes, either toward humans or their hens. They are just hatched that way. In some, it is kind of genetic.

Some can be fine but their environment may make them human aggressive. An example: A few years back someone posted that what had been a great rooster suddenly started attacking his five-year-old son. That rooster started going out of his way to attack that boy and no one else. It turned out that the boy had been chasing the rooster's hens. The rooster was protective of his flock. Totally understandable. But he now saw that boy as a threat to his flock and had to be removed.

There have been stories on here where a rooster would attack certain things. Maybe a certain pair of boots someone was wearing or a specific shovel someone was carrying. One woman was attacked if she wore a skirt but not if she was in pants. I can't explain any of these.

I guess I'm just trying to figure out what to keep an eye out for.

Different things. You only have one boy so you don't have to worry about two males fighting.

Cockerels hit puberty faster than the girls. When the hormones kick in they are driven to be the dominant chicken. They express that dominance by mating the ones they want to dominate. The girls are not mature enough for that so they try to avoid the cockerel or run away. So he chases them down and mates them by force. It is not about fertilizing the eggs as the girls are not laying yet. It is pure dominance. Sometimes it is not that bad but sometimes it gets really wild. Pullets can be injured. As long as no one is being injured I don't worry about it too much but I keep an eye on it. I have isolated the boys when it got too wild, even without injury. The more room you have the better. I suggest widely separated food and water stations so the girls can eat and drink without the boy guarding one and keeping them away.

Once they mature enough the girls will start cooperating and he should gain control of his hormones. A mature flock is usually very peaceful. So keep an eye out for how rough it gets as they go through puberty. You may need to isolate him. And see how he behaves when he matures. Some males never grow up and act as a mature male should. Some hens never make it to the point where they cooperate but instead want to be the dominate chicken.

But I think you are mainly worried about human aggression. What mainly defines that to me is when he attacks you. That is usually from behind, they often do not confront you but some can. They run at you and jump feet first, even of they don't have much for spurs. Their beak can be a dangerous weapon too.

So what do you do to try to keep one from becoming aggressive toward you. You can get a lot of different answers to that, many contradictory. Personally I try to walk through a cockerel if he is in my way, same as I do the girls. I don't seek him out to challenge him, just ignore hm as I go where I want to go anyway. Just go about your business. Some people on here will disagree with that.

If I see a cockerel look at me like he is thinking about challenging me I walk toward him. If he backs down fine. But if he starts circling as if he wants to get behind me, I walk him down again. I keep doing that until he does go about his business.

If a young cockerel just feeling his oats attacks me, actually hits me from behind when I'm not looking, I chase him down and catch him. I walk around with him for a few minutes. When I let him go I put him on the ground and hold him down. I use my fingers on one hand to peck at his head. Not to hurt him but to let him know I could. Then I walk away. That is his one chance. If he attacks me (or anyone else) after that he is gone.

Sometimes I need to handle one of his girls. If I can I first catch the rooster and lock him away where he cannot see what I'm doing. Then I catch the hen and do what I need to. I can't always do that but if I can I don't put him in the position where he feels he has to protect his girls.

The majority of my cockerels or roosters do not become human aggressive. Ever. But occasionally one will. I don't accept that.

 

[SamLockwood]

I assume I have enough pullets to my roo. I have 7 pullets, and 1 roo for my backyard flock.

I've read many many threads on here, and I keep seeing where friendly roos will flip on their owners. I am still new to this. He is about 16 wks old, so still young. At what age will you see their true colors? Right now, he's literally a dog in a chicken body. Well mannered, keeps his distance unless you allow him in your space. He will let you pick him up without putting up a fight. We don't really seek to pick him up but there have been times I've needed to handle him. He's alert, and still learning the ropes on how to chicken. The breed is easter egger. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what to keep an eye out for.

Even the good ones will become a handful at around five to six months of age when their hormones first kick in. Depending on how much you anthropomorphize your birds, you may get turned off to roosters or chickens in general.

Even the sweetheart cream legbar rooster became a jerk at this time. I had one rooster I considered culling because he showed human-aggressive tendencies at this time.

After a couple months of Horny Teenage Rooster Follies, they calm down a bit but you really won't know what you've got until they get over a year old.

One of my more mild mannered blue copper marans started acting like a sociopath after he turned a year old, and one or more of the other birds beat the crap out of him. I treated his injuries, which looked pretty minor, but he lost any interest in eating or drinking and died a few days later.

I assume I have enough pullets to my roo. I have 7 pullets, and 1 roo for my backyard flock.

I've read many many threads on here, and I keep seeing where friendly roos will flip on their owners. I am still new to this. He is about 16 wks old, so still young. At what age will you see their true colors? Right now, he's literally a dog in a chicken body. Well mannered, keeps his distance unless you allow him in your space. He will let you pick him up without putting up a fight. We don't really seek to pick him up but there have been times I've needed to handle him. He's alert, and still learning the ropes on how to chicken. The breed is easter egger. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what to keep an eye out for.

At 5 to 6 months of old they can become a handful when their hormones first kick in. You'll get a couple months of Horny Teenage Rooster Tricks and then they'll calm down somewhat.

You won't really know what you have until they're over a year old. A couple of my high-strung roosters calmed down at that point, and one of the more mild-mannered ones started acting like a psychopath to the other chickens (they ended up doing him in).

 

[Shadrach]

I assume I have enough pullets to my roo. I have 7 pullets, and 1 roo for my backyard flock.

I've read many many threads on here, and I keep seeing where friendly roos will flip on their owners. I am still new to this. He is about 16 wks old, so still young. At what age will you see their true colors? Right now, he's literally a dog in a chicken body. Well mannered, keeps his distance unless you allow him in your space. He will let you pick him up without putting up a fight. We don't really seek to pick him up but there have been times I've needed to handle him. He's alert, and still learning the ropes on how to chicken. The breed is easter egger. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what to keep an eye out for.

What you need to keep an eye out for if you're new to this is your behaviour more than the cockerels should you want life to go smoothly.

There is, in my opinion and experience, one thing one has to learn and that is at a certain age your hens become your cockerels/roosters hens. Some people try to intimidate the rooster to keep order. I've found cooperation worked a lot better for me.
Once you accept that the pullets/hens belong to your rooster then it becomes easier to understand for example his hostile reaction to you picking up one of his hens. What makes matters worse is often when a human picks a hen up, when she's put back on the floor she shakes herself out. She does that after mating with the rooster and he knows it.

Keeping circumstances will have a major impact on the whole groups behaviour but with the coop and run model, that area becomes the roosters area. With ranging and free ranging the terratorial lines become much less well defined and this can give enough space to avoid conflict.

 

[PoppasGrill]

We have 1 human agressive Roo, a bantam. When he comes up behind us we catch him, or overturn a bucket on him. He doesn’t do this regularly, so we assume we did something unknowingly wrong in his eyes.
Our other Roosters (18) are a wide range of breeds and personality traits, but have not been aggressive towards us.
Our flock is over 100 hens, so the main problem with Roos are gang raping specific hens while leaving others untouched. If they are near us we will push the Roos away from the hen to let her go on her way.

 

[Th3moth3rcluck3r]

Well, update lol.

The same day i posted this he decided to test his luck. I'm glad it was me, and not the kids. I got all the girls into the run for the evening, and he was last to go in. He decided to charge my feet. I was wearing sandals, and so i pushed him off once. He didn't take the hint and came at me again, except my correction was a little more rough this time. He was butt over head and you could tell i bruised his ego more than anything.

I think what may have caused this is my 3 older girls are still top of the pecking order and he hasn't been able to out rank them yet. They will jump up and submit so I can pet them and give them cuddles. He's still very clumsy, and still trying to find his bearings. All my girls are still too young to mate, and I really only have him for protection for them when they free range in the evenings. I've noticed when I'm around now, he avoids me, and will get out of my way. When I have treats he still is the first to come and eat out of my hand lol.

I do my best to not put human emotions on my chickens. I know for him, he's a rooster and they are set out to do two things. Protect and procreate. So since the incident, I haven't saught him out for pets. I try to he a good thing(aka food, protection). I know I spoil them, and they live a fairly pampered life. However I do know they are farm animals at the end of the day. Which if it comes down to it, and he becomes too much for me, my family, or the girls. He will get culled one evening after dark, and become dog food .

 

[SourRoses]

The same day i posted this he decided to test his luck.

It must have been your instincts warning you that prompted you to make this thread.

Personally, I've found aggressive cockerels give some signals first which are indicative of aggressive thoughts. The first is an intense stare.
After that they move on to the wing flap while staring. It often looks like something chickens might do to just stretch their wings, but I've observed them using this as a "Stop it, now" among one another. Roosters and dominant hens will flap at the others when they get too rambunctious and everyone quiets right down. Youngsters who actually are stretching their wings or trying to play will get disciplined for flapping their wings.
In cockerels, this early "mouthing off" towards people is eventually followed by easing up on your position, walking sideways, kinda scoping out how much your guard is up.
All of it can look like innocent chicken behaviors, so a lot of people miss it and suddenly find themselves attacked.

I find animals who rely on body language for communication are usually pretty honest about it. Meaning they always give warnings first. If you don't respond or if you happen to back off, they conclude you're weak and easy to defeat. A lot of keepers struggle with the idea that their roo would even want to defeat them. But it's important to understanding animals to recognize the difference between hopes and reality.

I don't play around with wannabe dictators. The flock is mine and I will do what I please without looking over my shoulder. So when I get those early "mouthing off" signs from a cockerel he goes on the "bye bye" list.

We've tried to keep aggressive roos before. What seems to always happen is after the first incident, they just get craftier and craftier about how they approach you. There are eyes always on you, plotting your demise, which is no less than how roosters treat one another. That's just no way to happily chicken keep.
We eventually got a good natured rooster, either mellow enough or smart enough to realize we provide food. I made sure to hatch a lot of his chicks and almost every chicken we have now traces back to him. Even the hens are nicer.

 

[Farmgirl283420]

I had a few roosters that would start trying to chase me and pecking me but the rooster I have right now is a good boy. He’ll be two in about 6 months and hasn’t attacked anyone! Good luck with your boy!