Submissive Rooster Acting Strange After Butchering Aggressive Rooster

[LittleAcorn]

Hi there. I am new to chicken keeping and ordered 8 pullets from Backyard Chickens. I ended up with two roosters... one who became very aggressive and went after one of my children yesterday morning.

Needless to say, that was it and I harvested my first backyard chicken. I was very humane and loving and used the broomstick method. This was not done in front of the rest of the flock.

As he was becoming aggressive, I did notice the other more submissive and sweet rooster hiding often. Since the rooster is gone, my submissive rooster is acting strange and will not come out of his coop.

Is this behavior because there was a disturbance in the flock? Is this new rooster feeling stress because the flock is not "protected"?

The other chickens are oblivious and happy.

Thanks.

 

[donrae]

congratulations on your first harvest!

I think it's simply because a bird disappeared. Chickens aren't the brightest, and they don't have a clue what happened to Mr Mean. In a wild flock, when a member vanished, it was to a predator. So, your Mr Nice may be keeping a low profile in case there's a monster hanging around, waiting to eat him. I'd just give it a few days and let things settle out. I'm guessing they're also fairly young, so some of it may be a maturity thing. Some males just develop slower than others.

 

[aart]

Welcome and congrats.

Time will tell how your other cockerel behaves after a few days....
.......once he realizes the dominant one is not ambushing him but in fact gone for good.