Strange rooster question

[Blueridgeviews]

We have a rooster who is only one year old. We've had him nine months now.
He is on the aggressive side which we put up with because he is excellent at keeping the hens safe from preditors during the day when they are out free ranging. He keeps them all together like a military sargent, and scolds any hen that gets too far from the flock.

The minute he sees or hears a hawk he rushes the hens to one of the forts we've made or back to the coop.

But oddly he gets quite upset when the hens go in to lay their eggs in the morning.
He stands outside the nest boxes and growls. It sounds like an angry dog growl.
He even has gotten in the nest box with the hen in there. He walks around quite irritated until they all finish laying and go outside together.

We had a hen get broody, and after two weeks on the nest something got in and cracked open a few of her eggs. We do have black snakes around, but we think it might have been our rooster trying to get her off the nest.

Anyone else ever seen this?
Do you think he will grow out of it?
Hate to get rid of him as he is such a good protector -- no hawk attacks since we got him.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Many roosters take 2 years to fully mature, could be he calms down after some time. Young roosters are more prone to messing around in the nestboxes than older roosters. Could be he's accidentally breaking eggs trying to help.

 

[azygous]

I agree with Old Hen, and also it's possible you are misreading your rooster's behavior.

When he is showing interest in the hen on a nest, it's a quite common behavior. Roosters tend to encourage a hen to nest, and once she's in, he's entirely likely to climb in with her and fluff the nesting material up for her.

The noise you hear him making isn't a growl such as a dog might make when irritated, but he's making special vocals to cheer his hen in her endeavors.

Young roos can get over zealous and break a few eggs sometimes, but it's far from malicious. You can help that situation by keeping the eggs picked up. The more that eggs accumulate makes the likelihood of breakage increase.

 

[meetthebubus]

I suggest just keeping an eye on it every roo is different here's an example of what my roo does for them nesting

 

[Blueridgeviews]

Oh thank you all!!
I've never had a rooster do this before, so I am impressed now, and think you are all correct that he's actually trying to protect the layers -- because as I mentioned, he is hyper-protective.

This makes me happy because William is such an outstanding rooster in all other ways. He's a huge and gloriously handsome Buff Orpington.

I love the video of Roo doing his thing, as that is similar to William's behavior only he sounds more like an angry dog growling -- which threw me off to thinking it was angry aggressive behavior.

Too bad He cracked Buffy's eggs, as they were half formed chicks, and poor Buffy went on the next box over and tried laying/hatching on a fake egg. So we've pulled all eggs and kept pulling her out of the box for a day and gently put her on the roost with others at night, and yesterday she was not broody anymore, and out happily grazing with the flock.
She's lost weight and rubbed raw in a few places so I'm giving her extra treats and some fermented grain.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Other hens will sometimes peck open a broody hens eggs too, so it might not have been the rooster.