Sad day, I will have to rehome...

[seminolewind]

I had a cute little silkie who used to sit on my lap all the time, then it turned into and aggressive roo, and would attack my feet all the time, flog me etc. So I did some modification work with him.
I went in the run every day and if he came at me, I gently boot-lifted him away. Then I kept doing it and following him around and doing it. Then he would go to eat. I prevented him from eating, he tried a few times. When he couldn't eat, he would go to mount the hen. I wouldn't let him do that either. All in all, I did not allow him to do anything at all.
After a week of this he quit trying. He tried here and there for a month, but then absolutely stopped doing anything when I was there.
Here we are two months later, and he comes over to stand by me, and I pet him. There hasn't been any more aggressive behavior.
I think if a rooster is aggressive toward you, my plan would be to prevent him from doing anything but stand there in your near presence. I don't think any of this would help before a roo gets aggressive. But I think that it's not just mounting a hen, it's stopping him from all eating drinking, mounting, etc., every day when you are around if he shows agression towards you.

 

[Katy]

I guess we have a differing opinion on what is an aggressive roo.

An agressive roo to me is one who attacks or threatens a human.

A roo mating is not aggressive to me. Even tho you may think it is aggressive to the hen, he is doing what comes naturally to him....and the hen. I don't think it has anything to do with proving his rank to you. If he is a young roo just maturing he will probably settle down as he matures and he knows his hens think of him as their leader and boss. If you are offended by the mating act then maybe you should rethink even having a roo.

 

[Henrietta23]

I agree that mating doesn't mean a roo is being aggressive. What I've been reading is that by preventing a roo from mating you're showing him that you are the head roo. You're not trying to stop an aggressive behavior, but by asserting your dominence over him it then transfers to other behaviors towards you which are considered aggressive. I've been standing my ground with my young silkie roo, tossing treats to the girls first, walking toward him till he backs away. I haven't been attacked in weeks. Not sure what I'm doing, if anything, that's making a difference, but something has changed in his attitude toward me!

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Exactly!! I'm 46 years old. I've had two children. I live on a farm where the cattle are literally mating in my front yard. Mating in no way offends me, but this has nothing to do with being offended by mating. It has everything to do with exerting your dominance over a rooster who thinks he's dominant over his owner. The methods described by both henrietta and seminole work. Those who've never had to deal with an aggressive roo and haven't tried the method shouldn't scoff until they've tried them.

 

[Katy]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I haven't had an aggressive roo for 30+ years which was when I had my last RIR roos. My "method" for dealing with them was the stew pot. There are too many good roos out there to put up with a nasty one. Personally if a roo has to be trained to behave I wouldn't want his genes in my flocks' gene pool.

 

[dancingbear]

I think if your roo isn't attacking humans, you should just leave him alone and let him be a roo.

One if the things my top roo does is run over and pick up treats for the hens. He calls them over and gives them the treat. He feeds them right from his beak, sometimes. How's he supposed to do that if you won't let him near the goodies?

He mates with the hens whenever he takes a notion, and never attacks people. That's what a roo is supposed to do. If you constantly interfere, there's a good chance you'll ruin a perfectly good roo.

Re-homing a problem roo is likely to result in the roo being dinner for the new owners. Who wants to adopt a mean roo as a pet? We eat the mean ones. (we also eat the extras, otherwise the hens would be bare-backed, bald-headed nervous wrecks) We've only had 2 mean ones in 15 years. We don't interfere with the natural behavior of a roo. We don't knock them off the hens, carry them around, or any of the rest.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
LOL, looks like you had an evil silkie roo too! Sounds like mine and his behavior modification.

 

[Henrietta23]

Quote:
LOL, looks like you had an evil silkie roo too! Sounds like mine and his behavior modification.

I have to get a close up of his head. He has devil horns, I swear!

 

[turnerstar31]

Quote:
Exactly!! I'm 46 years old. I've had two children. I live on a farm where the cattle are literally mating in my front yard. Mating in no way offends me, but this has nothing to do with being offended by mating. It has everything to do with exerting your dominance over a rooster who thinks he's dominant over his owner. The methods described by both henrietta and seminole work. Those who've never had to deal with an aggressive roo and haven't tried the method shouldn't scoff until they've tried them.

I understand the whole dominance thing that you are talking about but I don;t think that she had a problem roo in the first place. I don;t remember her ever saying that he was attacking them but maybe I missed that.

As for the whole rooster mating thing. Mine do it all the time. I have a free ranging flock and never have had any problems what so ever with a roo trying to attack me. And as for it going to stop them I am sorry but no matter how hard you work to stop them from mating in your presence I hardly doubt that you are ever going to totally stop it. Once they get it in their head that the female is receptive do you really think that they are going to stop and think oh well the human is here maybe I should not mate. Just my 2 cents sorry if you do not like it.

 

[LoneCowboy]

Even though you go through all the right steps so he thinks you are the head roo, you have to expect him to challenge you from time to time. You know he's going to mate your hens, the point is to not let him do it when you can see some times I just walk away like I don't see. I don't think you need to rehome him, you just have to win the challenge.