Rooster Hurting Hens?

[RoostyRoo]

Hi there,

I have a young rooster who just started crowing about a week or two ago. He has always been very timid and well behaved, but overnight he completely changed. He has started trying to breed the hens, which I understand involves the rooster pulling at their feathers when mounting, but he is way too aggressive. He doesn’t “flirt” to see if they are interested like I’ve seen other roosters do and he almost violently chases them and forces them to submit while they are screaming and trying to run away.

I’ve seen him do this to multiple hens and they seem a little beat up and understandably stressed.

Any advice? I don’t have much experience with roosters, but I have never seen one act like this before and I’m worried he is hurting the hens.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Crazy Chicken Keeper]

I've had ones like this before the hens get used to it, seperate him if he becomes too aggressive with them

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Hi there,

I have a young rooster who just started crowing about a week or two ago. He has always been very timid and well behaved, but overnight he completely changed. He has started trying to breed the hens, which I understand involves the rooster pulling at their feathers when mounting, but he is way too aggressive. He doesn’t “flirt” to see if they are interested like I’ve seen other roosters do and he almost violently chases them and forces them to submit while they are screaming and trying to run away.

I’ve seen him do this to multiple hens and they seem a little beat up and understandably stressed.

Any advice? I don’t have much experience with roosters, but I have never seen one act like this before and I’m worried he is hurting the hens.

Thanks in advance!

How old is he? (And if he is less than a year old, he’s a cockerel, not a rooster.) And how old are the girls? (And if they’re less than a year, they’re pullets, not hens.)

The ages are important to know, because most young cockerels have no clue how to woo the ladies and instead just go for it.

If you have older hens, a year or more older than him, you can keep him with them and they’ll generally beat the crap out of him until he develops some sense.

If he’s the same age as the girls, they’re not yet sexually mature, and he needs to be housed separately until they’re all older and ready for mating. (He’s not ready, in the sense that he isn’t courting them first to get them interested and backing off if they’re not.)

 

[PrettyBirdRocky]

Our -now- year old rooster was separated for months--within run so he could mingle. And even at 14months old, he's still learning his manners. Just yesterday I witnessed him try to mount two hens(1-3yos we have), he didnt flirt as say and they caused a ruckus and let him know in not uncertain terms they didn't appreciate it.

I'm glad we kept him and worked with him, he's a good rooster now. But those teenage hormones were a beast. He was pinned separately for 2 months at a time, released to see how he did, and if he didn't show manners, went back into time out.

Granted, he is a brahma, so I'm sure even though he's over a year, he's still learning.

Hope this helps some, but as stated above, ages and behavior matter too and sometimes they will outgrow it, some don't.

Good luck!

 

[Ridgerunner]

How old is he? How old are the girls?

He has started trying to breed the hens, which I understand involves the rooster pulling at their feathers when mounting,

Part of the mating sequence is that the male grabs the back of the female's head, usually feathers but sometimes the comb if he is clumsy. The head grab is instinctive, it is a signal for her to raise her tail up out of the way so he can hit the target. It is not her decision of whether to raise the tail or not, the tail is coming up once her head is grabbed. Without that instinctive reaction you would see not fertile eggs.

It is not that unusual for an immature cockerel to chase immature pullets and force them to mate. That can involve grabbing body feathers to control her so he can force her. If this is going on and he is not an immature cockerel then I think you have a problem.

I see this a lot with my immature cockerels and immature pullets. As long as no one is injured I don't worry about it. From what I've see actual injuries in my flock are rare from this behavior. But some people do see injuries. So again, how old are they?

 

[RoostyRoo]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay. He had started calming down and seemed fine but now he is amping up again and will lunge for the girls.

He is just about six months and so are the pullets he came in with. We have them in a flock with hens who are over a year old though and at first they fought him off, but now everyone is just letting him have his way and he just seems way too aggressive. He will jump on them when they aren’t looking and rip chunks of feathers out of the back of their necks and go after several one right after the other.

Any advice on what to do? We have a quarantine area sectioned off already so we could easily put him in there for a while, but I’m worried about the flock dynamics getting all messed up and causing a battle when we let him out (we have two other roosters and everyone seems to be coexisting very nicely right now aside from this).

 

[Tired old Rooster]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay. He had started calming down and seemed fine but now he is amping up again and will lunge for the girls.

He is just about six months and so are the pullets he came in with. We have them in a flock with hens who are over a year old though and at first they fought him off, but now everyone is just letting him have his way and he just seems way too aggressive. He will jump on them when they aren’t looking and rip chunks of feathers out of the back of their necks and go after several one right after the other.

Any advice on what to do? We have a quarantine area sectioned off already so we could easily put him in there for a while, but I’m worried about the flock dynamics getting all messed up and causing a battle when we let him out (we have two other roosters and everyone seems to be coexisting very nicely right now aside from this).

You have two other roosters. You can live without the stress and your hens can certainly live without the stress. No sense in letting your hens suffer something that may leave them being fearful of roosters. My advice would be re-home him or make soup.

I had the same issue and I tried for about two years, with constant time outs with no result. A waste of my time and effort and a disservice to my hens who had to live with that. Finally got on my last nerve with his antics and I booked him a suite at the Svalbard hotel.

Some roosters just suck and life is too short to waste on them.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I booked him a suite at the Svalbard hotel.

That's a new one I haven't heard before!

 

[Ridgerunner]

He is just about six months and so are the pullets he came in with. We have them in a flock with hens who are over a year old though and at first they fought him off, but now everyone is just letting him have his way and he just seems way too aggressive. He will jump on them when they aren’t looking and rip chunks of feathers out of the back of their necks and go after several one right after the other.
..............................
(we have two other roosters and everyone seems to be coexisting very nicely right now aside from this).

He is still an immature cockerel. It is possible he will grow out of this phase when he matures. Or he may not. You have options, much depending in what you want.

How much do you want to keep this boy? One obvious solution is to get rid of him.

As long as the pullets and hens are not being injured, let things go. The behavior I'd want to stop immediately is if he is holding them down and pecking their head as if he were trying to drill a hole in their skull. If you see that he is trying to kill them. If you see blood or a raw injury you need to stop it but if he is just pulling feathers I do not consider that a big deal. He is an immature cockerel with the hormones in control. He might grow out of it.

You can isolate him for another month or two so he can mature some. That does run the risk of him getting into serious fights with the older roosters when you let him join the flock again. Personally I'd want to have a good reason to keep him to risk that.

What I often see is that if the cockerel stays with the pullets the same age the adult roosters leave him alone, especially if they are separated. But if a cockerel tries to mate with one of the mature hens the rooster puts an immediate stop to it. The hen often runs to the mature rooster and lets him deal with that immature boy.

Good luck!