Rooster scratched my son

[wamtazlady]

Come on, people! This has been the ONLY attack soo far, and only since he's been crowing...... meaning the 'rooster' is still pretty young and just started to get into his hormonal stage. At this point in their life they are unaware of their actions and act out accordingly to what roosters do, which is to attack and defend any new comers into his property. It's NORMAL. With time, the rooster will learn that humans are not their to harm them and learn to accept their presence, but of course some training before his attacks gets outta hand is the best solution to preventing it. But to say cull and get rid of him for coming into adulthood and testing boundaries? That's just ridiculous as far as I'm concern. My advice would be to teach him to behave, it is paramount as he starts growing into an adult rooster..... I prefer the 'buddy buddy' method, meaning to be more of a friend than foe with the rooster, he will soon learn you are not a threat and doesn't see you as such. With people who prefer the bully method and trying to dominate the rooster..... it probably will work for the majority of time, but you can always be assure that he sees you as a threat which means there is always a chance of him attacking. With the friend method there is zero percent chance of him seeing you as a threat, therefor very very little chance of you getting spurred, given he's 100% committed to being a 'friend' with you. It's your choice how you will proceed with this, and of course nothing is guaranteed as every chicken behaves differently.

Sure, if there were only adults around the cockerel one could try to train the bird to not attack people. However, there are children involved. A child has a face that is well within jumping distance of a cockerel. A child will not react as quickly as an adult to something jumping up at its face. I put the well being of a child above keeping an aggressive bird.

How soon is soon with that buddy buddy method you talk about? I tried something like it for 6 weeks. Did not make one little bit of difference to his aggression. Would you really be willing to put a child at risk for weeks or months while this buddy buddy method is attempted? I am not.

 

[trudyg]

Become friends with a rooster? Not likely. He'll be careful around you since you are in control, but he is not your friend. I'll add my 2 cents worth--this won't get better. If you can manage him and keep the child away from him (cock in the pen, child outside the pen) then you could wait and see if he simmers down but I wouldn't plan on it. His true nature is coming out here; I'd cull. My grandkids knew that as soon as they got the stink eye and were afraid that was the day we send him to camp. And these kids are raised around beef cattle, so they pay attention to their surroundings.

 

[Shamo Hybrid]

I'd hate to be judged by you people. This is a cockerel coming of age.... he's SUPPOSED to act protective. Once they mature and get older only then will they understand that humans pose no threat or should be avoided, yes, some will never change but we are talking about a chicken who just barely crowed his first crow! Jeezus!

 

[Chicken Heel]

I can see both sides in this matter. When my grandchildren were young, I would shut the coop door so my roosters didn't have access when we gathered the eggs. I also recall my grandfather laughing his butt off when I got flogged by a game hen with chicks when I was about 5 years old. This after he had repeatedly told me not to go near her and had warned me what would happen if I did. I learned a life lesson the hard way that day.

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

Come on, people! This has been the ONLY attack soo far, and only since he's been crowing...... meaning the 'rooster' is still pretty young and just started to get into his hormonal stage. At this point in their life they are unaware of their actions and act out accordingly to what roosters do, which is to attack and defend any new comers into his property. It's NORMAL. With time, the rooster will learn that humans are not their to harm them and learn to accept their presence, but of course some training before his attacks gets outta hand is the best solution to preventing it. But to say cull and get rid of him for coming into adulthood and testing boundaries? That's just ridiculous as far as I'm concern. My advice would be to teach him to behave, it is paramount as he starts growing into an adult rooster..... I prefer the 'buddy buddy' method, meaning to be more of a friend than foe with the rooster, he will soon learn you are not a threat and doesn't see you as such. With people who prefer the bully method and trying to dominate the rooster..... it probably will work for the majority of time, but you can always be assure that he sees you as a threat which means there is always a chance of him attacking. With the friend method there is zero percent chance of him seeing you as a threat, therefor very very little chance of you getting spurred, given he's 100% committed to being a 'friend' with you. It's your choice how you will proceed with this, and of course nothing is guaranteed as every chicken behaves differently.

I somewhat agree with you. At this age roosters are getting a rush of testosterone. As he gets older it will balance out more.

I have had boys who began attacking when they were young but they then seemed to grow out of it.

I’ve also had one one rooster who literally jumped at someone once but then never did it again.

But I would also like to say that sometimes they don’t grow out of it and are simply mean.

I personally would give him time and go from there.

 

[starri33]

Come on, people! This has been the ONLY attack soo far, and only since he's been crowing...... meaning the 'rooster' is still pretty young and just started to get into his hormonal stage. At this point in their life they are unaware of their actions and act out accordingly to what roosters do, which is to attack and defend any new comers into his property. It's NORMAL. With time, the rooster will learn that humans are not their to harm them and learn to accept their presence, but of course some training before his attacks gets outta hand is the best solution to preventing it. But to say cull and get rid of him for coming into adulthood and testing boundaries? That's just ridiculous as far as I'm concern. My advice would be to teach him to behave, it is paramount as he starts growing into an adult rooster..... I prefer the 'buddy buddy' method, meaning to be more of a friend than foe with the rooster, he will soon learn you are not a threat and doesn't see you as such. With people who prefer the bully method and trying to dominate the rooster..... it probably will work for the majority of time, but you can always be assure that he sees you as a threat which means there is always a chance of him attacking. With the friend method there is zero percent chance of him seeing you as a threat, therefor very very little chance of you getting spurred, given he's 100% committed to being a 'friend' with you. It's your choice how you will proceed with this, and of course nothing is guaranteed as every chicken behaves differently.

Sorry, will have to respectfully disagree with you, this is not a "teenage" hormone thing, once they start there is a 99.9 percent chance they will continue, I currently have a 3 y.o. Roo sitting in my freezer, his 3 sons will be joining him shortly and there will be no roo's from that Daddy/grandfather kept. No eggs hatched till I am sure that they are not going to be from that bunch. Attacking me is one thing, attacking a child will have his head removed from his neck that very day. Far to many nice roo's out there looking for homes rather than stock pots.

 

[roosterhavoc]

I would beat this rooster with stick hard and often.

 

[aart]

Come on, people!

I somewhat agree with you.

Guessing neither of you kids are old enough to have children.

 

[starri33]

Come on, people! This has been the ONLY attack soo far, and only since he's been crowing...... meaning the 'rooster' is still pretty young and just started to get into his hormonal stage. At this point in their life they are unaware of their actions and act out accordingly to what roosters do, which is to attack and defend any new comers into his property. It's NORMAL. With time, the rooster will learn that humans are not their to harm them and learn to accept their presence, but of course some training before his attacks gets outta hand is the best solution to preventing it. But to say cull and get rid of him for coming into adulthood and testing boundaries? That's just ridiculous as far as I'm concern. My advice would be to teach him to behave, it is paramount as he starts growing into an adult rooster..... I prefer the 'buddy buddy' method, meaning to be more of a friend than foe with the rooster, he will soon learn you are not a threat and doesn't see you as such. With people who prefer the bully method and trying to dominate the rooster..... it probably will work for the majority of time, but you can always be assure that he sees you as a threat which means there is always a chance of him attacking. With the friend method there is zero percent chance of him seeing you as a threat, therefor very very little chance of you getting spurred, given he's 100% committed to being a 'friend' with you. It's your choice how you will proceed with this, and of course nothing is guaranteed as every chicken behaves differently.

Exactly how do you become buddy, buddy with a roo? the roo that I now have in my freezer came from a friend, never attacked them, was with me for 4 months before the first time he did it and he tried when I was giving them treats, I don't know how that could be construed as being a threat. I never surprised him, never tried being mean with him, he never got the hint that attacking me wasn't a smart thing to do.. he had more than 3 chances. These other's that I have are descendants from him. I have 3, 1 has gotten stupid with me, another got stupid with the lady that I'd hatched for, the 3rd has looked several times like he was thinking about it.

 

[Hobbits Mommie]

Unfortunately, I think the behavior will escalate. I just had to re-home my 1 year old. At first he'd just charge us, then he started flying up at our faces. I was reluctant to give him away, but was scared enough that I'd make my mate deal with him. Ultimately I decided that wasn't the right, or fair thing to do. If you're not intending to hatch eggs, there's absolutely no reason to have a rooster. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it's part of the process.