Roosters & Small Children: Video Embedded

[speckledhen]

After seeing so many comments about choosing a rooster based on breed because someone has small children, I decided to add a video to my YouTube channel about this specific subject. It touches on rooster behavior and temperament in general as well as why roosters and toddlers/small children can be a recipe for disaster without proper management. Hope this helps someone avoid a needless tragedy. And you get to watch my sweet and gentle Barred Plymouth Rock rooster, Atlas, forage with his harem while I talk, bonus!

Now, everyone always wants to pop in with stories of their small kids and gentle roosters, but a rooster is like a stallion or bull in a smaller package and ignoring that fact can turn into a sad story all too quickly. One flog and a child can be blinded. Thanks for watching.

And please don't comment and tell me I'm full of chicken poop unless you actually watch the video and see what I say until the very end. Then, we'll talk!

***no, you won't see a rooster attack anyone on this video because, well, mine just don't. But, then again, I do not have small children here, either, and that is a whole 'nother issue!***

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Excellent video @speckledhen I watched earlier today when you first posted on YouTube and found it very helpful.

 

[speckledhen]

Excellent video @speckledhen I watched earlier today when you first posted on YouTube and found it very helpful.

Oh, thank you! I appreciate that.

 

[Rissaroo]

Hi, I watched your video on youtube yesterday before I officially joined backyard chickens it was the only somewhat helpful video I could find about roosters and children all the others were a bunch of "funny" videos of kids getting attacked which might seem funny until you own a rooster that's constantly attacking your 7 year old.... I just adopted a 1 year old roo he is super sweet to my ladies and to me... However the second day we had him (had not integrated him with my hens yet kept him in the run while my ladies were free ranging) I was cleaning the run and pond my husband was building a new outdoor roost and my daughter was arranging pretty rocks by the pond, my roo (deuce) full on attacked her when I was out of sight, she screamed and ran my husband was on a ladder on the outside of the coop screaming kick him! And my daughter is too nice to kick a chicken so I ran up on him and bumped his chest once with my foot and he stopped. My daughter won't go near him and hardly goes outside because shes scared to death of him. She now gets jumpy around our hens which breaks my heart because we raised them all from chicks in our home and shes never ever been scsred of them. Our roo was attacking my husband every chance he could when I wasn't looking I actually caught him running up on my husband with his back turned full attack mode and I turned around and scolded him and he put his feathers down and started pecking around like he wasnt just about to attack him (totally busted him) he still has never attacked me and he won't usually attack anyone if I'm around them or if all his ladies are around him... So my husband had a few fights with him and after learning that he had to stand his ground and get deuce to back down my husband finally conquored him. He now respects his space and doesn't seek up to attack him... However its more difficult for my 7 year old daughter to not instinctively run from an angry rooster that can easily jump the height of her face and hurt her. Do you have any suggestions on how I can work with my roo and what my daughter can do to gain his trust. Even now after almost two months he sees my daughter and feels threatened. My daughter has never chased him, hit him, yelled at him... Ever... I have a video of her talking to him from the outside of the run telling him that she loves him and doesn't want him to attack her because she just wants to be his friend... Its getting to the point where I don't know how long me being around is going to stop him from attacking her and she cant challange him back like my husband has because... Well shes 7 years old... And deathly afraid of him now.

 

[Rissaroo]

So in shorter terms... My roo is nervous and defensive around my daughter... Who is not a toddler and is not loud and screaming and grabbing at him. I won't result to killing him... He is not a mean aggresive rooster... I know hes not hes very sweet... However he was adopted by me and moved away from anything he ever knew... Which I imagine is scary for him... But I don't know how to safely get him to trust my daughter without either one of them getting hurt... Because if he attacks her and she cant get him to back down ill guarantee he is going to get hurt by either me or my husband ... We don't want that. But I imagine its the same with all parents...

 

[speckledhen]

... Do you have any suggestions on how I can work with my roo and what my daughter can do to gain his trust. Even now after almost two months he sees my daughter and feels threatened. My daughter has never chased him, hit him, yelled at him... Ever... I have a video of her talking to him from the outside of the run telling him that she loves him and doesn't want him to attack her because she just wants to be his friend... Its getting to the point where I don't know how long me being around is going to stop him from attacking her and she cant challange him back like my husband has because... Well shes 7 years old... And deathly afraid of him now.

Thank you for watching the video. Sorry you're having this trouble. First, it's not really a matter of her gaining his trust. He has found a victim who runs and screams and that encourages his behavior. It's not really a great matter of trust but him knowing who is in charge of him. Naturally, she will run, what young child wouldn't? This has already set up a pattern with him, though he may have done it anyway. Unless she can completely change what she does, it will likely continue. Obviously, it's more important for her not to be injured than for her to learn to handle him at her age. And yes, he could definitely hurt her.

Roosters seem to pick certain people they can bully if it's in their DNA to be aggressive at all. Kids are great targets because the rooster gets the perfect reaction from them. If If it was an adult, I'd say get a pole and push him around and around and around, push him with your body (knees) to remove him from your space, etc. Walk around him like you are in charge, that all the space belongs to you. That is stuff to try and if you are consistent and he is not truly aggressive in nature, as well as possesses a good amount of smarts (this is key, IMO), it may work eventually. But, that is difficult for a small child. She may be better able to do that as she gets older/taller, if you decide to keep him around, of course.

It has been my observation that the roosters who are the dumbest are the most aggressive. The ones with human-aggression in their genes are going to be that way, no matter what you do. You'll never permanently change their behavior, no matter what some gurus will tell you. If you change it, he was only testing boundaries anyway, not truly programmed to aggression, IMO. I had quite the time with my BR rooster, Hector, whose body matured super fast, way ahead of his brain, but he was so smart that eventually, I taught him not to bite me. He never flogged, still hasn't at 2 years old. If he had, that would have bought his ticket out of here. Flogging is that line.

Maybe that boy needs a bubblebath? LOL. What I mean is this story from this thread here, by my best friend in KY. One of her EE roosters kept attacking her then-teenage daughter and she'd had enough so this is what happened.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/post-stories-of-you-roosters.281766/page-2#post-3414906

My main flock Roo was ordered as an Americauna pullet...one girl was named Cruella and he was Deville...after discovering he was a roo, the name stayed. He (as all the EEs are) was my DDs baby. At about 10 months old, he and my DD had a diagreement and it started a war. Our red cochin, Ruby, is a screamer. She screams to be picked up, screams when you pick her up, screams while you hold her, screams when you put her down well you get the picture. DD was in coop after school and Ruby began screaming for attention and DD picked her up...she was still screaming. Deville being the man of the coop came running to see what was going on and took in the scene...DD holding Ruby, Ruby screaming therefore I must attack the child. He ran at her and startled her...she ran from him. After that every time she went in the coop he would run at her. She picked him up and humiliated by carrying him around like a baby in front of his girls. For months it went on and she wanted me to fix it but the problem was not with the Roo and me, so I told her she would have to come up with a way to resolve it. He was not hitting her, just running at her. One day she went out to see the girls and he ran at her and scratched her with his toenail and she came stomping back to the house. This is where the war ended.

She walks past me in the kitchen and grabs my hand conditioning dish liquid with lavender oil in it and heads out to the coop. Curiosity got me so I had to follow her to see what was going on as I had already cleaned waterers and such earlier. I see her with a galvanized pan in the run, the water hose and she is making a bubble bath of sorts. I was about to call out to her when Deville came running up behind her and she whirled around, snatched the roo up and shoved him into the bubble bath! I nearly died laughing. I watched as all of his women formed a circle around this bubble bath scene. Deville was brawwwwking to beat the band and DD was reading him the riot act

"I am sick of you jumping me when I have done nothing to you" "You want to be a sissy and sneak up on me rather than attack facing me, then you can smell like a sissy" I have had enough of you Deville" "If this does not cure your problem, the next time you get the blow dry treatment and pink nail polish!"

Now I am unable to move and barely breathing because I was laughing so hard. He is trying to get away, she is dunking him back in and soaping him up and just giving him the speech of how it is gonna be. Meanwhile 30 girls are in a circle around them when she snatches him out, grabs the hose and hoses him off. When she released him, all the girls ran from him...everytime he walked towards one of them they turned and took off. DD cleaned up the "rooster bath tub" and has never had a problem with him since, as the pics indicate.