Rooster has started attacking

[ChrisBLover8]

hey BYC again! I need some advice on my rooster. Within the past month he has attacked and chased my kids, ages 7,5, and 2 multiple times. I know part of it is that they show him they are fearful and immeadiately start running and screaming. He had never messed with my husband or I. We would walk towards him and he’d just move out of the way. But about a week ago, we had a near tragedy with a hawk attacking our hens. Thankfully everyone escaped. But the next day, I walked to the coop to get eggs (they are free range but he was hanging out near there) and I walked towards him just like normal and he came at me 3 times. I managed to get him to back off before he got me but still not super fun. Is there anyway to stop this behavior? We are building a bigger coop and run so they won’t range anymore soon (because of the hawk) but I want to be able to make friends! I will try to attach a picture of him. He’s beautiful. We had a round of fowl pox go around and we thought he caught it because we began to notice black on his comb. However it’s been several months and some days it looks great, others it’s really black. I’ve heard this can be an excess of testosterone?

 

[Kiki]

You may want to read this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...er-becomes-dinner.844018/page-4#post-12626931

 

[Frazzemrat1]

Regardless of the advise of experts regarding how you and your husband should treat this rooster, he's not going to learn to tolerate your children as they're too young to use these methods on him. The minute an animal goes after a kid, that's the moment the animal is gone.
Sorry, rather than risk injury to one of my kids (or their friends), I'd be putting this guy in the crock pot with a nice hot bath of onions, carrots and potatoes.

 

[Folly's place]

This bird is a real danger to your children, and needs to be gone ASAP. You might be able to reform him as far as you and your husband are concerned (or maybe not!) but meanwhile, he's terrorizing your small children.
He could take out an eye! Or cause serious wounds, on legs and faces.
There's nothing positive about this situation, and he's not going to prevent hawk attacks either.
While he's stalking humans, he's not protecting his flock .
Children need to be protected first.
When they are a bit older, maybe have another cockerel. One who's polite and ignores humans.
Cockerels are not pets, and shouldn't be raised to loose their respect for people. Treats and cuddling can backfire as they mature. If that's part of this story, move forward and raise the next ones differently.
Mary

 

[bobbi-j]

I agree with the others. The kids need to come first. Period. There is no reason that I can think of that you would need to keep this rooster.

 

[DrFrank]

From my experience the single-combed roosters (Mediterranean) are people-aggressive.

No kid should be terrorized at his own house. If you enjoy having a rooster, you could get the "Oriental" roosters, like the ones that Ideal Hatchery carries, which are very friendly to their human handlers and look majestic.

The small patches of darkening in the comb is due to bruising. That rooster doesn't seem to have pox.

 

[ChrisBLover8]

Thanks everyone. I really hate to see such a beautiful rooster go. But I know my kids absolutely come first. Keeping he and the hens in the run won’t be helpful to his aggressiveness? I would love to keep them free range if he wouldn’t attack and the hawk wasn’t an issue. But I’d rather not go to jail for shooting the hawk

 

[Frazzemrat1]

I think keeping him locked up with this girls will only make him aggressive to that area. Which would make life a pain when you have to clean up.

 

[Birdinhand]

he's such a gorgeous rooster and his aggression may be what kept the hawk attack from being a tragedy, but now that he's set on being the alpha, I don't think there is much you can do to turn him around. to spare his life, you might find someone without kids who is dead set on free ranging and do a swap with them. one way or another I'd recommend following through on a larger run and keeping them inside and getting a more kid friendly roo.

 

[kwhites634]

hey BYC again! I need some advice on my rooster. Within the past month he has attacked and chased my kids, ages 7,5, and 2 multiple times. I know part of it is that they show him they are fearful and immeadiately start running and screaming. He had never messed with my husband or I. We would walk towards him and he’d just move out of the way. But about a week ago, we had a near tragedy with a hawk attacking our hens. Thankfully everyone escaped. But the next day, I walked to the coop to get eggs (they are free range but he was hanging out near there) and I walked towards him just like normal and he came at me 3 times. I managed to get him to back off before he got me but still not super fun. Is there anyway to stop this behavior? We are building a bigger coop and run so they won’t range anymore soon (because of the hawk) but I want to be able to make friends! I will try to attach a picture of him. He’s beautiful. We had a round of fowl pox go around and we thought he caught it because we began to notice black on his comb. However it’s been several months and some days it looks great, others it’s really black. I’ve heard this can be an excess of testosterone?

I had a RSL rooster like that; sent him down the road. His replacement, a BCM, was gentle as a lamb at first, but got nasty when he got hens of his own. We had a few scraps & I almost shot him, but decided to give him one more chance. He finally came at me through the door opening of the raised coop, hitting me in the chest. When he glanced off to one side, I knocked him out of the air, slamming him to the ground. That was the last disagreement we had; he was a perfect gentleman after that, 'til I lost him a few weeks ago to what I assume was a predator.