Dealing With an Aggressive Rooster

If you have chosen to have roosters in your flock, you will probably have to deal with an aggressive rooster at some point.  This is my aggressive rooster.  I call him RooRoo (the most sissy name possible for the macho man who wants to take me down!)

He’s giving me that look out of the corner of his eye that says “You think I’m pecking a bug over here, but really I’m watching for my opportunity to attack!”

You have to remember that being aggressive is in a rooster’s nature and is actually one of the reasons you might have chosen to keep a rooster.  They will fight to the death to protect their hens.  But having a rooster trying to get his spurs into you on a daily basis is no fun, so here is how I have chosen to deal with the problem, and it is working well so far.

You want your rooster to figure out that you are not a predator or another rooster.  When you “fight back” (kick, hit, chase) you are reinforcing all the things you don’t want him to think about you!  You will win this battle, because you are bigger and smarter, but you might have a constant war on your hands as he tries to regain his spot at the top of the pecking order.

I have chosen to not react as another rooster would under any circumstance.  That means that I cannot fight back, but I also cannot retreat.  My solution is to grab RooRoo and hold him.  I hold him firmly under an arm while I do all my outside chores – or if there are no chores to do I just sit and hold him and talk to him for about 15 minutes.  If he struggles, I hold him more firmly, but if he’s calm I loosen up a bit.  I treat him like a pet, and maybe even offer him a treat, but let him know that I am in charge and will hold him as long as I want to hold him.  When I am ready to set him down, I do it slowly and am ready to pick him right back up again if he struggles.  I don’t let go until I he is ready to walk away calmly.

So far, so good.  I have been doing this every day and he hasn’t come at me at all since day two.  My hope is that eventually he’ll come to like being held and petted and see me as the person who brings him treats and shows him kindness.  But even if he doesn’t, at least I don’t have to worry about him attacking me from behind if I’ve got him in my arms!

One suggestion.  If your roosters are fast (mine are) or you are slow (I am) or your coop or run has areas that it’s hard for you to get to (mine does) you might want to get a net to help you nab that unruly rooster.  I have a big fishing net that I keep handy near the coop all the time.  If I can’t get my hands on RooRoo easily, I just scoop him up in that big net. Problem solved.

How do you deal with aggressive roosters?