y is he so mean??????????

[chickengeorgeto]

This article will help you understand the male chicken and what has gone wrong: http://www.usask.ca/wcvm/herdmed/applied-ethology/Bottle-raised males can be very dangerous.pdf

I have seen to many dairy bulls turn on the herdsman to ever turn my back on one. The last time I did a bottle raised registered Jersey bull tried to overturn a 55 horse John Deere tractor with me sitting on it. He almost did. That is why they still make 30-06 Springfield ammo.

 

[Avlana]

Here's a copy of a post I posted in another thread on the topic...it works: 

You gave excellent advice! Totally agree with this.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

IMHO a cockerel isn't a rooster until he has completed his first adult molt or in the absence of an adult molt when he reaches 18 - 24 months old . It is the same difference between a 15 year old boy and a 25 or 30 year old man.

Whether you pickup your hens or not is immaterial. What matters is that your hens are quite and complacent when you do pickup or hold one.

A gentle and quite rooster begins with gentle and quite hens. An overly nervous and flighty hen will help spoil the whole flock, or at least make it hard to see what's going on with the rest of your birds. The hen contributes most of the personally to a rooster and a flighty hen will spawn more nervous roosters than tame ones.

Whether you pickup your hens or not is immaterial. What matters is that your hens are quite and complacent when you do pickup or hold one.

The post below may work but only if your hens don't go into orbit from the whipping and flogging or the beating of the floor that you are doing.

For all the new flock keepers that is a very accurate description of a flock of chickens. I have yet to hear two roosters strolling wing in wing while singing Kum-ba-ha and I doubt that Beekissed has seen this sight either.

The next time you think that you have a bully of a hen, all she is doing is protecting her "personal" space which is all that the pecking order is about.

My roosters sleep next to each other on the perches and eat next to each other--while they are surrounded by hens. They are not related, nor were they raised together.

My hens are not tame. They run and squawk and fight if I grab one. The roosters don't bat an eye. They are not human aggressive, and they know I'm above their pecking order in the same way a rooster is above the hen pecking order.

My experiences do not match yours in any way, and I think you might not want to assume that your experiences are "the way things are."

 

[Beekissed]

The post below may work but only if your hens don't go into orbit from the whipping and flogging or the beating of the floor that you are doing.

For all the new flock keepers that is a very accurate description of a flock of chickens. I have yet to hear two roosters strolling wing in wing while singing Kum-ba-ha and I doubt that Beekissed has seen this sight either.

The next time you think that you have a bully of a hen, all she is doing is protecting her "personal" space which is all that the pecking order is about.

When roosters start to tangle, the hens clear the area. They don't go into orbit, they just vacate the premises. All mine do the same thing...they just leave and wait it out, then come back in an go on with flock life. If the social order is normally calm, then that calm attitude will be first and foremost in their behavior when confronted with a sudden tussle among roosters or from flock owner to rooster. No orbiting or excessive disturbance has been noted.

No whipping or flogging of the bird or beating of the floor needed or necessary....if that is what the description evoked as images in people's minds, I apologize for not being clear. I've never intentionally whipped or flogged(flog~to beat or whip (someone) severely) a rooster or any other animal in my life, though I did accidentally hit a cockerel a little too hard(once) this spring due to the nature of the training tool~hence the advice to use a light weight switch.

Having had regular whippings as I was growing up, I know full well the difference between whipping and merely smacking a bird on the fluffy feathers with a light switch...it never makes contact with the skin or nerve endings in any way when placed there.

A smacking is different from beating and switching is different from whipping and flogging is calculated to cause much pain if inflicted by a human. Neither whipping or flogging~or beating of a floor...I believe the word used was smacking...a smacking is much, much different than a beating~ has been offered here as advice for training roosters. If it had, those words would have been used as descriptors.