We had a Buff Orpington rooster…3 strikes and he was out. So mean! Now we are raising a Blue Cochin splash roo and he is so far super sweet and runs to us only for treats!
Awesome tips! We're a year into keeping chickens and have learned a lot. I won't keep an aggressive roo! As for breeding and foraging...we have a flock of 24 hens + 3 roos, all 5 months old from the same hatch. We're observing how the boys interact with their ladies and if all goes well we'll keep all 3 over winter. Our "pretty boy" John Travolta kinda just hangs out with the ladies and is pretty quiet. Elvis took charge and has won the hearts of most of the hens. Freddie Mercury has hustled a side flock of his own. It's so interesting to watch their little personalities interact 😁💖
My buff orpington rooster is by far the best roo ive ever had. He has never attacked anyone and has never shown any sign of agression, however he is one of the best protective roosters ive ever had. Any bird to fly over or anything other than a human to approach and he sends his ladys to cover. He even does a better job at raising chicks than our momma hens.
Our Brahma is just really sweet, no aggression at all. We just gave his first son (a mix between Sussex and Brahma) away to a petting zoo, and he seemed to be like him. And the Sussex Brahma mix looks really good. We will be breeding again next year for anyone who is interested in the Netherlands.
I have about 20 adult roosters presently and not a one of them is aggressive. I will not allow aggressiveness on any of my poultry birds. For me presently it only takes one attack and they are composting. When we lived in town we got some Buff Orpington hens as chick's as the place only sold females. We got an adult Buff Orpington rooster and put him with the chick's when they were about a month old. He was not aggressive then, but once the hens matured, he got mean. Since he was our only rooster we kept him and just made sure my toddler was not in the pen with him. His beak was broken twice and grew back when he tried to attack and got kicked. I incubated some eggs from him and his son was the nicest rooster I ever had. When we were building our new house I brought him out to the new place and when a hawk tried to attack he would race to the front door to tell me that a hawk was attacking. When I would secretly give him some extra treats in the evening instead of going straight to the coop, he would go out of his way to come to me as if to say thanks. He lived to be a good old age and was still the dominant rooster over all the other 20 or so about a month before he died. We named him Boss and he would always follow me around but would not like me to hold him.
Same standards here with kids and Roosters! Our kids hand raised all the chicks as egg layer flock but also 5:48 to be tame/ and potential showable 4-H projects. One batch we got a “bonus” chick who turned out to be a gorgeous dark Cornish rooster. They named him Hawk because of his intense gaze and piercing side eye….. fast forward 9-10 months and he was getting an attitude that I was watching carefully. He submitted to our flock Roo but started getting between the kids and hens when they were in pen. That was MY strike 1. The kids were afraid to go into the coop without me. Strike 2 would have been actually funny if it weren’t so potentially horrible. The chickens were all out free range as they often were. UPS drives up and I walk out. OUT OF NOWHERE comes a streaking BULLET of shiny black feathers. The poor guy dropped the package and ran for the truck- slamming the door just in time. “Hawk” just strutted around all proud and talking smack. 😳 Needless to say he didn’t get another chance on our farm! Our BEST ROO- “Rocky” was a RIR who was also hand raised and a gentle giant with hens and kids. He was an amazing protector/alerter with aerial and ground predators and only crowed at appropriate times. The last was on my husband’s list of criteria!!! We had one who crowed at ALL hours of day and night, hens didn’t like him either 😆 Oh the adventure of having a flock!
Yep. With people i have 1 strike rule. With other bird 3 strikes. I have had one smoke all 3 strikes in 30 min. Then the broomstick of doom. I did not intervene quickly on an aggressive Buckeye and his RIR partner. Cost me 6 birds in deaths plus the two of them for hard cull. RIR is tasty BTW. On the other end is the unicorn. Our 2nd rooster was a production Rhode Island Red named Iggy. The gold standard in roosters we call the Iggy standard. Very social and friendly. He was a master of keeping hens in the yard protecting from hawks. In one case fighting and driving out a rogue roo that someone dropped off in the area. One case I had a young buff orp hen that was determined to Darwin herself. I was trying to get her back into the yard and not fall into a ditch. Iggy came up to the fence and barked at her. She ran right back in. I have a similar RIR now that failed for breeding quality. Has most of the "Iggy" quality my youngest pointed that out. He is named Iggy II and became head yard roo this week w/ the death of our Black Australorp. Roos are interesting. I agree with your standards. I also use a mentor roo when raising young roosters it solves a lot behavior issues down the road.
I used to have two roosters that would tag team the hens. The dominant one would mate with them first and then the submissive one would go right after 🤦♀️ We had them attacked by a hawk once and the dominant rooster took on the hawk (and won!) and the submissive guy hid in the brush with the hens 🤣
Love my Salmon Faverolle rooster (SOP breeder). Is cuddly with me and no signs of aggression towards anyone, very excepting to juveniles and chicks even young cockerels, my Bantam hen breeds prefer him, to the other roosters, even though he is a massive breed compared to them. Have not liked my EE roosters (hatchery quality). Made the hens nervous and they would run from them, aggressive with mating. Picked fights with other roosters. And one became human aggressive.
my old rooster only ever attacked my dad. if he ever got a little too pissy we would spray him with the hose snd he would calm down. he ripped a fox in half once after it got into the coop so he got away with a lot. He is a BEAUTIFUL and HUGE rhode island red
Hmm, I've had a Barred Rock flog me so bad I have scars on the back of my neck. I tried a Buff Orrington, he was the meanest to me & the hens, I also got a 2nd Barred Rock (breeder threw in for an extra) & he was a jerk too. So I purposely bought a Speckled Sussex. Raised him day old, but he was never calm, in fact he was always sounding the alarmif i did any of the daily routines, had the flock stressed & he bred hard on the hens. He had 12 to breed but he plucked them so bad, even bloodied them. He & his flock have been processed. My current flocks are 3 OR hens 15 mos, 9 New Hamphires (one is a Cockerel) 19 weeks old, 4 black Australorps & 3 Rhode Island Blues, 4 weeks old. These flocks will be combined once the youngest is 4 months old. They're separated by age right now. I worked hard to imprint the New Hamphire Cockerel, but I see traits that concern me. And I was hoping you were going to cover that. He follows me around a lot. Gets up close to me, studies me. Sometimes he pecks my boots, flaps his wings. I was told that when I approached a good roo, that he backs away, to create space. Mine doesn't. I do allow him to check everything out that I take in or out of his domain.
Personally, I want my roosters to be a little bit aggressive. Because we live out in the middle of nowhere and most of our flock has been eaten by Coyotes....
for any other old people out there, "rizz" is short for "charisma".
We had a Buff Orpington rooster…3 strikes and he was out. So mean! Now we are raising a Blue Cochin splash roo and he is so far super sweet and runs to us only for treats!
Cochins do have the sweetest roosters! We have never had an angry mean one! Such pets and they love their hens… very talkative too 😊
Awesome tips! We're a year into keeping chickens and have learned a lot.
I won't keep an aggressive roo! As for breeding and foraging...we have a flock of 24 hens + 3 roos, all 5 months old from the same hatch. We're observing how the boys interact with their ladies and if all goes well we'll keep all 3 over winter. Our "pretty boy" John Travolta kinda just hangs out with the ladies and is pretty quiet. Elvis took charge and has won the hearts of most of the hens. Freddie Mercury has hustled a side flock of his own.
It's so interesting to watch their little personalities interact 😁💖
My buff orpington rooster is by far the best roo ive ever had. He has never attacked anyone and has never shown any sign of agression, however he is one of the best protective roosters ive ever had. Any bird to fly over or anything other than a human to approach and he sends his ladys to cover. He even does a better job at raising chicks than our momma hens.
Our Brahma is just really sweet, no aggression at all. We just gave his first son (a mix between Sussex and Brahma) away to a petting zoo, and he seemed to be like him. And the Sussex Brahma mix looks really good. We will be breeding again next year for anyone who is interested in the Netherlands.
I have about 20 adult roosters presently and not a one of them is aggressive. I will not allow aggressiveness on any of my poultry birds. For me presently it only takes one attack and they are composting.
When we lived in town we got some Buff Orpington hens as chick's as the place only sold females. We got an adult Buff Orpington rooster and put him with the chick's when they were about a month old. He was not aggressive then, but once the hens matured, he got mean. Since he was our only rooster we kept him and just made sure my toddler was not in the pen with him. His beak was broken twice and grew back when he tried to attack and got kicked. I incubated some eggs from him and his son was the nicest rooster I ever had. When we were building our new house I brought him out to the new place and when a hawk tried to attack he would race to the front door to tell me that a hawk was attacking. When I would secretly give him some extra treats in the evening instead of going straight to the coop, he would go out of his way to come to me as if to say thanks.
He lived to be a good old age and was still the dominant rooster over all the other 20 or so about a month before he died. We named him Boss and he would always follow me around but would not like me to hold him.
Same standards here with kids and Roosters! Our kids hand raised all the chicks as egg layer flock but also 5:48 to be tame/ and potential showable 4-H projects. One batch we got a “bonus” chick who turned out to be a gorgeous dark Cornish rooster. They named him Hawk because of his intense gaze and piercing side eye….. fast forward 9-10 months and he was getting an attitude that I was watching carefully. He submitted to our flock Roo but started getting between the kids and hens when they were in pen. That was MY strike 1. The kids were afraid to go into the coop without me.
Strike 2 would have been actually funny if it weren’t so potentially horrible. The chickens were all out free range as they often were. UPS drives up and I walk out. OUT OF NOWHERE comes a streaking BULLET of shiny black feathers. The poor guy dropped the package and ran for the truck- slamming the door just in time. “Hawk” just strutted around all proud and talking smack. 😳 Needless to say he didn’t get another chance on our farm! Our BEST ROO- “Rocky” was a RIR who was also hand raised and a gentle giant with hens and kids. He was an amazing protector/alerter with aerial and ground predators and only crowed at appropriate times. The last was on my husband’s list of criteria!!! We had one who crowed at ALL hours of day and night, hens didn’t like him either 😆
Oh the adventure of having a flock!
Yep. With people i have 1 strike rule. With other bird 3 strikes. I have had one smoke all 3 strikes in 30 min. Then the broomstick of doom. I did not intervene quickly on an aggressive Buckeye and his RIR partner. Cost me 6 birds in deaths plus the two of them for hard cull. RIR is tasty BTW.
On the other end is the unicorn. Our 2nd rooster was a production Rhode Island Red named Iggy. The gold standard in roosters we call the Iggy standard. Very social and friendly. He was a master of keeping hens in the yard protecting from hawks. In one case fighting and driving out a rogue roo that someone dropped off in the area. One case I had a young buff orp hen that was determined to Darwin herself. I was trying to get her back into the yard and not fall into a ditch. Iggy came up to the fence and barked at her. She ran right back in.
I have a similar RIR now that failed for breeding quality. Has most of the "Iggy" quality my youngest pointed that out. He is named Iggy II and became head yard roo this week w/ the death of our Black Australorp. Roos are interesting. I agree with your standards. I also use a mentor roo when raising young roosters it solves a lot behavior issues down the road.
I used to have two roosters that would tag team the hens. The dominant one would mate with them first and then the submissive one would go right after 🤦♀️ We had them attacked by a hawk once and the dominant rooster took on the hawk (and won!) and the submissive guy hid in the brush with the hens 🤣
Love my Salmon Faverolle rooster (SOP breeder). Is cuddly with me and no signs of aggression towards anyone, very excepting to juveniles and chicks even young cockerels, my Bantam hen breeds prefer him, to the other roosters, even though he is a massive breed compared to them. Have not liked my EE roosters (hatchery quality). Made the hens nervous and they would run from them, aggressive with mating. Picked fights with other roosters. And one became human aggressive.
my old rooster only ever attacked my dad. if he ever got a little too pissy we would spray him with the hose snd he would calm down. he ripped a fox in half once after it got into the coop so he got away with a lot. He is a BEAUTIFUL and HUGE rhode island red
I just call that guy "Stew".
Hmm, I've had a Barred Rock flog me so bad I have scars on the back of my neck. I tried a Buff Orrington, he was the meanest to me & the hens, I also got a 2nd Barred Rock (breeder threw in for an extra) & he was a jerk too.
So I purposely bought a Speckled Sussex. Raised him day old, but he was never calm, in fact he was always sounding the alarmif i did any of the daily routines, had the flock stressed & he bred hard on the hens. He had 12 to breed but he plucked them so bad, even bloodied them.
He & his flock have been processed.
My current flocks are 3 OR hens 15 mos, 9 New Hamphires (one is a Cockerel) 19 weeks old, 4 black Australorps & 3 Rhode Island Blues, 4 weeks old.
These flocks will be combined once the youngest is 4 months old. They're separated by age right now.
I worked hard to imprint the New Hamphire Cockerel, but I see traits that concern me. And I was hoping you were going to cover that.
He follows me around a lot. Gets up close to me, studies me. Sometimes he pecks my boots, flaps his wings.
I was told that when I approached a good roo, that he backs away, to create space. Mine doesn't.
I do allow him to check everything out that I take in or out of his domain.
Personally, I want my roosters to be a little bit aggressive. Because we live out in the middle of nowhere and most of our flock has been eaten by Coyotes....