Is my rooster aggressive?

[redinator]

That sounds exhausting. More exhausting than a trip to the chopping block and getting another rooster.

I give the hormones a couple of weeks to pass. A few thumps or shoves of my boots lets them no I'm not afraid of them and won't tolerate any ridiculousness.

Of course, I'm still new to all of this and my oldest cockerels are 5ish months, so I might be eating my words later, but so far they've settled down and keep a respectable distance. I only handle them if/when it's necessary and that seems to work. They don't invade my space and I don't invade theirs.

The RIR cockerel I handled frequently because I heard/read that they can be terrors. Aside from couple temporary bouts of insanity, that my older pullets corrected, he's been a sweetheart. So far he's the only cockerel that I don't have chase/net/trap/"kidnap" in the dark of night to get hands on. He even comes over for chest scratches when I'm petting the pullets.

 

[McChooky]

Just petting the hens can trigger a cockerel and make them becomes aggressive. Hearing a hen squawk will do it too. This is why I don't recommend having a cockerel or rooster around kids

 

[McChooky]

We have three chickens, two hens and a rooster, that we raised from chicks in our bathroom. I have a 3 year old and together we (carefully) snuggled them multiple times per day. They are now almost 4 months old and are living outside where they have a coop they go in at night and they free range during the day, so we still spend a lot of time with them still because we are all outside together. They love to join me when I garden and run over when I start pulling out weeds so that they can dig in the dirt. They come running whenever they hear my voice, even if I open the window and I'm inside. I look outside and they have followed my voice and are sitting on the porch outside. It's very sweet. The rooster was the most friendly, and therefore got handled the most, but recently he's been acting different. This is my first time having chickens and I understand that roosters take a while to behave "roostery", so I'm not sure if this is aggressive stuff or just regular stuff...

Basically he's still very friendly and wants to be around me, but now he's always giving me the side eye and looking like he's going to charge me. He crows a ton around me, almost gets in my face and crows at me. It started to feel aggressive? I thought crowing was supposed to be a sign that everything was good.

Unfortunately he did show his hand and now I'm not going to be able to keep him because yesterday he attacked my daughter and it was pretty unprovoked. He flew right at her, spurs out, and looked like he was going to go after her again had I not grabbed him and put him in the coop. She was pretty scraped. Yes, she was slightly in his face, but no more than usual. As I said we all hang out together a lot, and he was the one that chose to come over and be near us, it's not like she chased him down. We are all very sad and I am wondering if I missed the warning signs I mentioned above? Or if they are not warning signs and I shouldn't worry about them in the future if a different rooster displays similar actions..

Thank you for the help!!

Roosters can be taught to respect boundaries.The four foot rule. A rooster has a harder time attacking you when you have time to react. They prefer to approach you and hang around a bit then sneak attack