Rooster Turning Aggressive

[McChooky]

View attachment 4097041
Here he is.

He is 53 weeks old.

He was in a group of 32 baby chicks we received a year ago. From that group, we are down to him and one hen.

He has always been a good rooster and has not shown any aggression until recently.

I sold 4 of his 5 remaining hens about a month ago and I noticed that he was getting more aggressive after that. He might be blaming for the loss of his hens. Probably not.

We also have 8 16 week olds and 5 13 week old cockerels and pullets in an adjacent run/coop. I am trying to integrate these with the older rooster and hen. They are in the “look but cannot touch” stage with some supervised free-ranging where both groups can mingle and if anything gets out of hand I will step in. That has been going on for about 2 weeks now. Perhaps he see me as the “rooster” of this larger group and wants to displace me. Probably not.

It may just come down to hormones.

I've had 2 roosters turn on me after getting rid of hens.THey belong to him or so he thinks

 

[Mrs. K]

I agreee with a lot of what you say. However, you did leave out (IMO) two rather important part os having roosters, space and interactions with hens.

Again IMO, people that tend to have consistently good luck with roosters tend to have very large flocks - and very large spaces to keep them. Occasionally, even then one will get a rotten rooster. I think we all naturally tend to give advice from the view point of our own coop. IMO roosters take more space than hens. If you have a very small backyard flock for a few eggs, in a very small coop, I would say no to roosters.

Some roosters add so much to the flock, a flock master is a joy to have in the flock. But not all roosters are flock masters, most are fair roosters, and some are terrible to hens, or people or both.

O think most of us, who have been in this game a long time, kept the first rotten rooster too long. The longer I keep birds, the less I think that it really has much to do with people, but more of the luck of the draw. It is a vey small brain to train.

Inexperienced people can vastly underestimate the violence of an aggressive bird. Most aggression gets worse and worse. I have never behaved so that I deserved to be beaten up, and I do not keep an aggressive bird or advise others to do so. A lot of it is hormonal, and training has limited effect on that. I think that when you have had success what happened is there was enough time that the hormones dropped .

Some roosters are terrible to other birds, this is especially true in smaller set ups. They can damage or kill other birds. They don't call it cock fighting for nothing. Again space is a huge issue in this. Multiple roosters can wear out the hens.

Always solve for peace in the flock you have in the space that you have right now. Chickens don;t wait for a bigger coop or run. Some birds work well together, and some birds do not, even if you have the correct square footage or you free range all day. Chickens did not read the book, as to this is what they are suppose to work in.

I think your advice is very good, and I follow it myself. I really liked your point on fear aggression and familiarity aggression. But I think there is a genetic aggression too. I don't think it should be indicating that peoples interaction with chickens will work with all roosters. Good husbandry is removing a bird for the benefit of the flock and the safety of humans.

Mrs K