Rooster bullying - what to do?

[chickengoesmeow]

I have three roosters, a 4 year old EE, a 3 year old legbar, and a 9 month old EE/legbar mix. The EE and the legbar lived together in peace for 3 years with no issues. The legbar can be aggressive at times, but once he faces retaliation he chickens out so the EE never felt threatened. This spring I hatched the EE/legbar mix and he was fine for the first 7 months. Very skittish and docile, never once attacked me, and I thought he was just going to end up on the bottom of the pecking order. The legbar was quite mean to him and wouldn't let him eat or drink with the others at first, but accepted him by the time he was 6 months old.

About two months ago the EE/legbar mix started to man up. He still hasn't shown a hint of aggression towards me and very rarely towards the EE, but he is ruthless towards my poor legbar. He will chase him around and rip out his crest and the legbar has started making these pitiful scared noises whenever the mix is around. It's not really traditional rooster flogging agression, more like when hens will bully each other. And it's not even about the pecking order anymore since the legbar fully respects the mix's rank above him.

I thought I would give them some time to sort themselves out, but it's been two months and it's only gotten worse. I feel so bad for the poor legbar and I hate to see him getting chased out of his own flock. I was thinking about seperating the mix for a week then reintroducing him to the flock, but I'm worried that will just cause more issues since the mix will have to reassert himself in the pecking order. I'm thinking I'll just have to rehome one of them, but I don't know which one.

Option 1: Rehome the legbar
He is quite agressive towards people and sometimes other roosters, so if I rehome him he will probably end up as soup. He isn't especially sweet towards the hens either, but my girls adore him. He is their favorite and even the hens that don't particularly like roosters will cuddle up with him. Deep inside he's sweet, but he just has a ridiculous amount of testosterone in his little body. I don't mind the aggression too much, but I know a lot of people have a zero tolerance policy for that type of behaviour. He has also been in my flock for 3 years and my girls love him, so I feel bad sending him away to become soup when all he did was be bullied.

Option 2: Rehome the EE/legbar mix
The mix has never ever attacked me. Never even pecked me. He is extremely skittish and makes the danger call when I enter the coop at night, but has never shown a single sign of aggresion (which is weird because the legbar is his dad). The girls don't especially care for him, especially the older ones. The ones he was raised with will wander with him sometimes but they will wander with the other two roosters equally as much. He would probably be easy to rehome, but I don't really want to rehome the only rooster who won't attack me. He is also an absolutely gorgeous bird and I nursed him back to health from cocci when he was younger, so I don't want to see him go.

I don't think my EE would be amused with me getting rid of either of them (he actually really likes having other roosters around), but I'm worried that the legbar is going to get depressed and die because he's being 'exiled'. Or that one day the legbar is going to have enough and kill the mix. Or that the mix will kill the legbar! I'm so conflicted over this. I'm leaning towards keeping the legbar, but pretty much all of my family says I should get rid of him and keep the nicer one.

 

[azygous]

What's happened is two things. The three have reshuffled the pecking order among them, and figured out where they rank. So, do not remove any of them or it will just make them have to sort it out all over again when you return the Mix. The problem now is that the Legbar has lost his self confidence when the Mix took over second place.

Rooster self confidence is pretty easy to fix. I had a situation last summer in my flock where my two roosters, father and son and pals for six years, suddenly reversed roles. The younger one thrashed his dad pathetically. The daddy roo was chased off a far distance and it took all day for me to find him. He didn't want to go anywhere near the other one.

First, I took the old guy and let him stay alone overnight in his coop while the young upstart spent the night in the secure run. Next morning, I put the young one in the run and let the old guy out with a couple of hens to parade and interact right in front of the young roo. I could almost hear the daddy roo gloating, "I have two hens, how many hens do you have in there? Oh, right. NONE!"

That night the two roosters were again pals and roosted peacefully in their coop together. Everything has been peaceful ever since, and the two are comfortable in their reversed roles.

 

[chickengoesmeow]

What's happened is two things. The three have reshuffled the pecking order among them, and figured out where they rank. So, do not remove any of them or it will just make them have to sort it out all over again when you return the Mix. The problem now is that the Legbar has lost his self confidence when the Mix took over second place.

Rooster self confidence is pretty easy to fix. I had a situation last summer in my flock where my two roosters, father and son and pals for six years, suddenly reversed roles. The younger one thrashed his dad pathetically. The daddy roo was chased off a far distance and it took all day for me to find him. He didn't want to go anywhere near the other one.

First, I took the old guy and let him stay alone overnight in his coop while the young upstart spent the night in the secure run. Next morning, I put the young one in the run and let the old guy out with a couple of hens to parade and interact right in front of the young roo. I could almost hear the daddy roo gloating, "I have two hens, how many hens do you have in there? Oh, right. NONE!"

That night the two roosters were again pals and roosted peacefully in their coop together. Everything has been peaceful ever since, and the two are comfortable in their reversed roles.

That makes a lot of sense. I have a two part run, so I'll try putting the legbar and the hens in one half and the mix in the other. I really don't want to rehome either so it's great to hear that that worked for you.

 

[azygous]

Here's another hint on how to deal with rooster psychology. Roosters are a lot like human men in so many ways. The two species share a lot of the same issues. It's what gave me the idea for using a couple of hens to bolster the old guy's self confidence.