young rooster trying to kill older hen

[Silkie owner]

If you need him to chill out there is this stuff that you can give to chickens to calm them down. If when he’s calm the girls might accept him so he wont feel the need to attack them. Here’s the link:https://www.globalherbs.co.uk/product/chicken-chill-out

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've seen that exact behavior before. I had a cockerel with a flock that had no mature rooster, some mature hens, and some pullets his age. As he matured the pullets and most of the other hens would accept him and willingly mate with him, but the dominant hen would knock him off when he tried to mate another one in her sight. I've done that a few times, the transition from her being flock master to him taking over was always pretty peaceful, but not this time.

Eventually he matured enough that he decided to become flock master instead of letting her have the position. For two days it was pretty brutal. He was bigger than her and wasn't running away anymore so she became the one picked on. He kept her away from the rest of the flock. He would chase her away and if he got close enough he'd peck her, usually trying for the head. She never became bloodied but it could have easily happened.

After two days they reached an accommodation. She was still the dominant hen but he was now the flock master. She stopped bullying him, he stopped attacking her. They became best buddies. The flock was again peaceful.

I don't know what will happen with yours if you let them fight it out. I had the advantage of the hen having a lot of room to run away and get away. In tight quarters it could have been a different story. Each chicken has it's own personality so you can't tell what the outcome will be. I decided since no blood was drawn I'd give them a chance to work it out and they did. You've had blood drawn.

The options I see for you are to let them fight it out, get rid of one of them (I hold my hens as responsible for flock peace as the males), or pen him separately for a while to see if he can mature enough the hen will just accept him instead of trying to bully him to hold onto her flock master position.

Good luck!

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I recall now he was also the smallest cockerel (but with the biggest comb/wattles) so I figured also a good trait for purely egg laying breed.

This is not accurate according to my understanding.. he would be the lightest on the feed bill perhaps but maybe not have the best egg laying characteristics.. I recently watched a video on this that described placing finger around the back girth and tail area girth selecting the ones with the widest frame allows for the maximum amount of space for reproductive organs and egg production. I will see if I can find it to share..

https://livestockconservancy.org/images/uploads/docs/ALBCchicken_assessment-2.pdf

Finally found what I was looking for and bookmarked for future sharing..

it gets dark here around 9pm now, but I have still supplemental light in a coop on until 11pm (never changed the timer since winter). Would reducing daylight hours help and would you reduce it gradually over a few days or at once and how many days would it take to see the effect?

This could have some impact.. I would cut it full throttle on day one and expect it to take about a week to 10 days for any drop.

I too also think hens are accountable and am not above eating one.. however, it would be more profitable for me to sell a laying hen at that age for $20-25 US than putting her on the table.

Best wishes, for whichever form of a peaceful flock you choose!

 

[derBauer]

He’s probably not trying to kill but mate her.

 

[CanadaEh]

This could have some impact.. I would cut it full throttle on day one and expect it to take about a week to 10 days for any drop.

this had some good impact - he started to crow less frequently in the cage the day I turned the supplemental light off.

But the whole thing just almost worked:
1) released the rooster after about 10 days of caging last Wednesday
2) everything was ok for a day - he has given an evil eye to the old chicken but did not try to harm her and was mating with younger hens
3) next morning I opened the coop he came out the last with severely bloodied the base of a tail missing some feathers and one younger hen cover in rooster's blood. As I started to see hens occasionally pecking at the rooster's injury, he was put back in the cage to heal.