Will my rooster attack the baby chicks?

[mockingbird]

My rooster seems to take the hens' lead on chicks. If their broody is present, she seems to let him know they are ok and part of the flock and he leaves them alone.
But if they are unsupervised and other hens start chasing them he will join in perceiving them as a threat to the flock.
He doesn't seem to have a clue that they are his kids. I have noticed that the squawking of a chick in distress tends to trigger attacks from hens and roosters alike (without a broody to intervene.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Occasionally you hear about a broody hen attacking and killing her own chicks. It's rare but it happens. You don't get guarantees with living animals that have their own personalities. That's not going to stop me from letting a broody hatch and raise chicks, just because it might happen. If I see it happening well that's a different story.

It's possible a rooster will attack chicks. I haven't seen it but it's been mentioned on here before. I agree the maturity and social ranking in the flock can have an effect. I seldom see immature cockerels attacking chicks when there is a dominate rooster in the flock. Still, I have seen it and consider immature non-dominate cockerels more of a risk for attacking chicks than about any others. I occasionally see another hen attack a chick, but that's pretty rare unless the chick first invades her personal space. From what I've seen the vast majority of the time a mature flock master does not attack chicks and occasionally helps out with them.

I both have broody hens raise chicks from Day 1 with the flock and I brood chicks in my brooder built into the coop. In both cases the chicks grow up with the flock. I regularly turn my chicks out of the brooder so they can mingle with the flock at five weeks. The mature dominate rooster's reaction is the same in both cases. I do not keep the chicks separated until they are half-grown so I don't know how a mature dominate rooster will react to that situation.

With living animals you don't get guarantees. Bad things can happen. But in my experience I'm totally comfortable with a mature dominate rooster in the flock when I have baby chicks in the flock.

 

[FatBurrito]

Centrarchid, exactly. My first thought was "sounds like a young rooster" but I can't think and form sentences AND type out stuff on my phone!

FatBurrito, how old is the rooster? Maybe he's just too young to be a daddy! Although my EE was a great chick daddy his first year (purchased chicks with no broody). He'd lay on the ground with his head down and let them climb all over him and tug and peck at his comb and bright feathers.
He'd close his eyes and just LOVE the attention! Haha.

Don't know how old he is exactly,what age till they can be dads? I mean,all the hens were his age and they're laying eggs and hatching babies so the babies are prob his.

We had a pure white baby and we only have one white rooster and the rest are black hens

 

[MageofMist]

My rooster used to be chick-aggressive, bullying the chicks I was raising until his hen went broody again and he got depressed. I picked up the lump of fluff that was sulking in the hallway and sat down with him on the couch, and I also had the 2 month old chicks out with me at the time. Well, they started pecking at his comb and wattles, so I poked them to tell them to stop, they then snuggled, and he hasn't had any chick-aggression since. Either due to them asserting themselves, his longing to be with other chickens, or/and the snuggling, probably all 3 mixed together.

Even now that the hen is raising her own brood (as she rejected the last ones I raised) he has been helping her with looking after them and watching over the ones that wander, only pecking once if he sees them doing something they shouldn't be doing, like a mother hen would.

 

[Chickassan]

How many chicks in total are you trying to get this rooster to accept? I have seen a rooster kill chicks they were haphazardly just thrown in with the flock and the rooster handed them as if they were intruders I doubt their age ever crossed his rooster mind only the fact they didn't belong in his flock mattered.

 

[chickens really]

If the Chicks have a Momma.....Momma will not allow harm to come to her Chicks...I put mine out at 3 days old into my Flock...My Rooster is fine as are all the other Hens...No one messes with my Hens that have Chicks...Chickens are not stupid....

 

[FatBurrito]

5 chicks,that is if we are giving him away with my hen,but that is a different story

Will he accept slightly younger chickens? He is older than two of my chickens,will he attack them?

 

[chickens really]

Yes...Look no touch pen till they are used to each other..

 

[ChuSayBok]

*affirmative nod to centrarchid*

My social groups are in the emerging process at this point and haven't been especially well managed, but...

All my adult roos have been fatherly and sweet to chicks, the immature ones indifferent; save one young raging cockerel. He killed 2 3-week-olds before my husband caught him jumping up and down on a 3rd and ended his reign of terror with the 12 gauge. I had found the others dead on the ground prior and was in a quandary, b/c none were injured or sick. I've had several hens that would peck at them; only two that did any real damage (I've got some posts somewhere about that, I think.) I've got several young roos running around right now and have had various hens breaking the rules and going broody and out w their young and haven't seen any conflicts so far, but there is only one dominant rooster and the younger ones haven't shown any hostility toward him or each other so far (they also still have plenty of space to get away from each other up to this point.) My broody hens are also old and salty enough to whip the whippersnappers.

But as to your original question, I would be very surprised if a daddy roo was like that with his own babies. I'd watch him at first to make sure and see how he acts with them. Mine usually act like the hens do; I've got another post on the rooster thread of a roo that actually became a surrogate mother:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-rooster-thread.1175758/page-35#post-18772567

 

[Pat Mcaffee]

I usually wait until my birds are half grown before integrating them with the flock. My rooster is not violent towards human but very aggressive to the rest of the flock, especially my speckled sussexes. I also have bad experiences with new chicks around any Rhode Island Red.