Rooster Keeps Attacking me!

[bristol]

so how do you get then to stop ? because mine just started attacking me after 5mths and I have always held him and been nice but that hurt and left a bruise ,and I'm afraid he will start on my parents next , id hate to have to have him for dinner

 

[Beekissed]

I don't know what to do either I hope someone can help us , because mine just started attacking me also, he was always so gentle and I always held him , but he bit me in the leg last week and came after me again today he is huge and the only way to get him off is with my foot but it doesn't seem to bother him

If you take the time to read through this thread there are some pointers on how to change your rooster's mind. He's just confused and it started with the "so gentle and I always held him" part, so it's time to convince him you are a predator and he's just a chicken. Read back over those posts and you'll find things that actually work and can keep your rooster out of the pot if you actually try them with any effectiveness and follow through.

 

[haileebucket]

I have a young rooster that I keep with my ducks he gets along great with them shares the females with the males even. we rescued him from the side of the road in an industrial area. Yesterday he stalked me and was holding his wings low I didn't know what it meant so I stomped and told him to nock it off. Has any one else seen a roo do this?

 

[Michele14]

oh boy I'm screwed!!!

 

[Briamy Bill]

Please do NOT ever carry a rooster up side down by the feet. They literally can not breathe. They don't have a diaphragm and all their organs will be compressing their lungs. So they calm because they can NOT breathe properly. It is cruel, so unless you are getting ready to butcher, otherwise, don't use it as a method to discipline. I just wanted to make sure folks know this.

Anyway, I ALSO have had too many roos chase me as soon as my back is turned and I really wish I understood why. I only come, and feed you guys! I never rush, or try to scare you. I don't get the turning the back, means attack me. If it is an animal thing, what is it? Many a farmer I have known that in the instanced the bull charged, it was when they turned their back to him. Never to the face. Weird?!

 

[Beekissed]

Please do NOT ever carry a rooster up side down by the feet. They literally can not breathe. They don't have a diaphragm and all their organs will be compressing their lungs. So they calm because they can NOT breathe properly. It is cruel, so unless you are getting ready to butcher, otherwise, don't use it as a method to discipline. I just wanted to make sure folks know this.

Anyway, I ALSO have had too many roos chase me as soon as my back is turned and I really wish I understood why. I only come, and feed you guys! I never rush, or try to scare you. I don't get the turning the back, means attack me. If it is an animal thing, what is it? Many a farmer I have known that in the instanced the bull charged, it was when they turned their back to him. Never to the face. Weird?!

They have a clear, thin membrane separating their abdominal viscera from their chest cavity...if you'd ever butchered a chicken you'd know that. That membrane holds back any abdominal viscera from advancing into the chest cavity where the heart and lungs are located, even if a bird is held upside down. Their lungs are also tucked into the spaces created by their ribs, unlike a human, so even if the viscera were to place pressure on that membrane, the chickens can still breathe efficiently if their ribs are not being compressed from the sides.

They have multiple air sacs~apart from the lungs~ that are part of their respiratory system, so they don't breathe like us at all...so constricting the SIDES of the bird can cause more respiratory distress then hanging one upside down, as they need to be able to move certain muscles that move bones in their chest cavity in order to create the negative pressure it takes for them to breath. So, when you folks are holding birds in your arms too tightly, it can cause more respiratory distress than holding a bird upside down.

So, literally, they CAN breath. They calm because they quickly tire of trying to right themselves from the upside down position as they fight against their whole body weight to do so. That's why heavy birds calm down much more quickly than do the lighter weight and/or younger birds.

I've been carrying/transporting birds that way for 40 yrs and have yet to see it cause any harm or difficulty with respiration with any bird I've carried that way. People have been carrying chickens that way since the beginning of time. If it were harmful to them, they wouldn't do it....farmers care about their livestock's wellbeing and can't afford to lose them over careless handling, so if holding a rooster upside down was harmful to him, it wouldn't be performed.

Enter the urban chicken owner, who places human emotions and feelings on common farming practices and you have people stating as fact that holding a chicken upside down is cruel and can kill them. It's not true. Period. I guess if you were to leave that bird there for a long period of time he may die, but a simple upside down hold for carrying, moving, or just to get them off the roosts is not a bit harmful to those birds. On the other hand, a small child holding a chick too tightly or holding a hen too tightly in his arms can indeed kill a chicken because the bird's ribs are too tightly compressed for good air exchange.

It could just be possible you don't understand why your roosters are chasing you simply because you don't understand the animal you are keeping at all.

 

[Briamy Bill]

I appreciate your response, although a bit insulting, rude, and all assuming. I would like to respectfully respond, and it is not an argument, I promise. Yes, my goal is to NEVER give advice to people new to farming any animal. I believe simple advice can be harmful to people who should really learn about an animal thoroughly and treat it properly. So let me introduce myself.
I live on a farm! I guess I sounded sweet or urban in my post. I am sweet I guess, urban, not so much. I married a life long diary farmer and we live just a few miles from his home farm, and his family who are pretty much all farmers. We just hobby farm and love gardening these days. It is sadly impossible to solely farm these days, the home farms are all dissapearing, corporate farm owners are making the money, crop farmers too, you gotta have land man!!! Anyway you probably know all of this, you sound very smart. I raise my flock VERY differently than my in-laws did for sure. Their chickens never saw the light of day. Mine roam all over the property and corn fields I am surrounded by. I let my mother in law do the regular butchering of the chickens, she is very quick and does a great job. I have owned more breeds of chickens than I can remember. My current flock includes hens and 2 roosters I hatched myself. I end up with a lot of leg horns as our closest neighbor has a chicken barn and I get the ones that don't make it in the truck. Wendy, she knows I will take them in, as she has to kill them, that is another story. They are always crippled trampled dirty little tiny things.. Here is a funny thing! When they arrive, they are dazed, what is this, sun? grass? They all walk over to the fence, and stand and look out. Like for weeks!! I am like, hey, the door is open, you can walk around, ya know? But nope, for weeks they think they are in a cage.. finally they blend with the rest. Are always great layers. You may think this silly, I find it a bit sad, so I don't do the chicken barn career. These 2 roos I hatched are maturing, and 1 is really going at me lately. I have had this happen but never with leghorns. I just wonder why? what makes turning your back invite this? But it is true for any animal, from a bull, to a bear...they always say back away face forward. I just wonder why? Hey you are smart, you tell me! We usually just need one roo, so one will go. I think I know which one!
I appreciate your advice, again. However, I hope you realize folks here are "backyard" chicken (hence the name) people who could take advise and run with it. I don't advocate any treatment for any reason that may cause harm. I am not a vet, so about the membrane, you got me there. I will just tell you what I know. There will always be opinions, so it is good to talk about it, and maybe the facts are blurry, so we wouldn't want anyone to think something is completely harmless, right?
I only have read and understood this to be true ( that they can not breathe well ) for many years, and from many different sources. So for current reference, lets browse this site, which you and I are on, so you must find some value here. I do, and I can quickly pull over 5 references to this subject on this site alone, claiming the chicken is unable to breathe well and can even die. A quick google search finds many in agreement. I.E. www.poultryclub.org www.rogueturtle.com www.mytoos.com www.mypetchicken.com ... These were the just the few that came up first. The statement that a chicken calms because it is tired or sick of hanging down is really hard to believe. Anyone who has tried to wrangle a non domesticated animal, really ANY animal struggling to get out of a humans grasp or control knows an animal fights, period. It will fight until it exhausts itself. My chickens will go hysterical if I try to pick them up, even putting salve on their combs get them in a ruckus, and they don't stop because I am holding them and they are tired of it. So when you hang a chicken upside down, it immediately stills, right away. If it is going to butchering, fine, but as a way to carry or discipline, my vote is no.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
Nope...it doesn't. I've never had a single chicken just immediately go still when it was hung upside down~if only! Since you don't hang them upside down, maybe you haven't tried this personally? If I get a chance this season I'll make a video of this for you. Since you aren't hanging other types of farm animals upside down, they couldn't very well tire as easily as a chicken when being held in this manner. Try holding one where it has to fight against it's own body weight for a bit while being suspended off the ground...the time it takes to tire them will be in direct relation to their size/body weight and physical fitness. You can disbelieve it all you wish, but until you've tried it, you can't really know.

You may take my response as rude simply because it refutes what you say and that's your privilege, as there was no rudeness given in that post, but since none of those sources you linked has anything about their personal experience with hanging a bird upside down to carry it from one place to another or simply to get it to a calm state, I'll have to stick with my own experience on the matter. When I want to know something about dairy farming, I'd likely resource your husband, depending on what type of dairy farming he does compared to my own.

When I want to know something about chickens, I resource people who have actually raised them for a lifetime, which I have done with my own mother and my grandmother, along with countless old farmer gentlemen who have raised chickens for a lifetime, and then raised them for my own lifetime. I don't make claims for being "smart" but some things you just know because you've done them all your life and this is something I know. I've also been a nurse for almost half my life, so I'm also fairly competent at assessing respiratory status on a creature by their breath sounds, respiratory rate and nonverbal indications of distress.

Quote:
Just simply turning the back doesn't necessarily cause or invite that, but if an animal is going to attack a larger, taller animal, attacking from the back is more to their advantage in all ways....the creature they are attacking can't see them coming, they have time to get away before the person/animal can turn and retaliate and they have a head start.

I'm surprised that, if you've raised all breeds and many flocks by now, that you don't know what causes a rooster to attack, which is likely what led me to assume you had very little experience with chickens at all.

 

[lazy gardener]

I can attest from personal experience that hanging upside down does not make it difficult to breathe: as a kid, I spent a lot of time upside down, standing on my head, doing hand stands, hanging by my knees from the swing set. Didn't affect my breathing a bit. They make home traction set ups that the user straps his feet into, and can then hang in an almost upside down position to off load some of the weight from the spine. If upside down made it difficult/impossible to breathe... those traction devices would not be manufactured.

 

[Briamy Bill]

Oh yea, true that! I agree, we were just referring to the info about how chickens are different than humans and how that may or may not affect them etc.As well a few suggestions that hanging them upside down to teach them not to chase, that was the discussion..A lot of us have had a roo that suddenly decides to charge or chase
.. I love teeter hang ups, a real back stretcher!