What to do with an aggressive rooster....

[fshinggrl]

He is 9 months old and is not aggressive towards me. He is aggressive towards his hens. They do not squat for him so he has to chase them down and grab hold of their heads to mate. Yesterday I witnessed him chase one down, grab hold, mate and then when she got up, he grabbed hold again and just stood on her back. He then got off and she refused to get up again because he just stood there waiting. I intervened at that point. He prefers my 3 white hens (backs bare) vs my brown/redish ones.

What would you do?

 

[Clackclack]

It's a tough call - loosing a rooster or having your hens beaten up. In the long run you might end up with injuries or bald hens. I had some aggressive roosters and ended up rehoming them (but not into a crock-pot) to protect the peace. I didn't enjoy in, but it improved things a lot.

 

[Nicole01]

We cull aggressive roosters.

I absolutely hate it, but I've never seen a chickens behavior change.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

We also cull aggressive roosters, whether they are aggressive towards hens or people. I put them in the meat pen, and they go to the processor with the broilers.

We've been very lucky, however, and I've only ever had to cull three flock roosters that I had planned to keep but turned out aggressive. We have cockerels all the time from our hatches, though, but they don't really count for me, since there was never a chance that I'd keep them and they go to the meat pen the second I'm positive they're male.

I have one gorgeous boy right now, a funky lemon blue cuckoo Marans (my avatar) that I'm looking at side-eye right now. Our alpha roo died last week of an infection and this one has started to be a bit overly aggressive with the hens now that the top dog is gone.