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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 9:15am | IP Logged
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I was wondering if any of you all have any experience with roosters. My neighbor has a lot of roosters! Someone just gave her a few more, and I guess one must have lost a fight or something because now he is at our house!  We found him taking refuge in our shed during a rainstorm the other day. So, the first day or two, he sort of stayed around the perimeter or our usual "yard". (although we have 12 acres) Anyway, yesterday he started venturing more into "our" territory...on our porch and deck. When I go out there to take out a trash bag or something, I will hear him coming up behind me quickly, like a velociraptor! I will turn quickly, and there he is..sort of stalking me! (At least that is what it seems like.) He also comes right up to our backdoor. We have an all glass door and the little kids will stand there and chant, "You can't get me! You can't get me!" as he peers in at them. I can't help but think if that glass wasn't there....EEK!  I was on the porch, on the phone yesterday. I sort of had an idea of where he was, but then he quickly hopped up on the porch near me and then started walking towards me. Is this him showing aggression? My son chased him off the porch and deck several times yesterday, but then I got sort of scared when I happened to notice...he had come RIGHT back, and then he walked right back up to our back door. So, I know that roosters are probably fairly dangerous for the little ones, (he is as tall as our 2 year old)so I have been making sure there is a big kid out there with them at all times when they play on the trampoline etc. But, as I am not a "farm girl" is there anything else I should know? My husband tried to catch him this morning to take back to his parents house, but I assume if it was some sort of territory battle between him and the other 10 or so roosters, he may just wander back here. Do you usually pen up roosters, and if so, to what aim? (i.e. they don't lay like hens. We do have a chicken coop/pen for the chickens we used to have that ran away, but I don't even know how we would get him in there! He is very big and strong looking. We also have a cat that wandered over here that I feed every day now (so I guess he is "our" cat.) Anyway, he is scared to death of the rooster, and I keep seeing the rooster on the porch, making the cat cower beneath him. We do feed the cat by our back kitchen door. Perhaps that is why the rooster is stalking that area? I took a handful of cat food and threw it at the rooster...away from the cat, over in a side yard today, so the cat could eat in peace as it has been mostly hiding under our porch for two days now! Should we try to catch him and try to take him back nextdoor, how DO you catch a rooster???!!!  I told my husband, "That cock is getting cockey!" I guess that is where the word cockey came from, because that is how he seems; like he now owns the place! The whole velociraptor thing freaks me out too! That is how it is at my neighbor's house. When they are on vacation and we have to get the mail for them and feed the animals, we have to get a big stick to sort of fend them off!! They are spookey little pea-brained creatures! Any "farm girls" know what to do?
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
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Booksnbabes
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 9:35am | IP Logged
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No advice, but in my limited rooster experience you are right to be cautious. Their attacks are nothing to be flippant about.
Could your neighbors retrieve him? You might have to come to an agreement that if he cannot stay where he belongs, he will have to be eliminated. I think the likelihood of him returning is high as they are very territorial, and I would worry about him around little ones.
Take this with a grain of salt because I have never liked chickens! Caring for them was one of my least favorite chores growing up. We usually did not have a rooster about because of the aggression issue with kids around. The one I remember quickly ended up as soup for that reason.
Poor kitty!
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Booksnbabes
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 9:39am | IP Logged
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10 Bright Stars wrote:
| They are spookey little pea-brained creatures! |
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This pretty much sums up my feelings about them!
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Aagot
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 10:19am | IP Logged
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I have had sweet roosters and mean ones. If he is at the bottom of the pecking order next door, there is a good chance he can be nice. On the other hand, if your neighbors have many (why? are they using them to fight?) he probably didn't get much handling and would be scared. If he is just going for your feet, I would be less concerned. Some fly at your face! In that case, I'd either have him for dinner or demand that the neighbor's fetch him.
Have you tried putting a dish of chicken feed out for him? If you sit next to it and pet him while he is eating, you will see if he is friendly. keep a piece of wood in your other hand to hit him with if he goes for you. Once he is next to you, you can pick him up.
To trap him in your coop, put out food and water.
All that said, if you don't plan on getting more hens and don't want the rooster, I would just tell the neighbors to get him.
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stacykay
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 11:44am | IP Logged
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Aagot wrote:
| .... keep a piece of wood in your other hand to hit him with if he goes for you..... |
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Oh, my!!! I did get quite a chuckle out of that piece of advice!!!  I have none to offer, as we've never dealt with roosters, thank goodness, but we have had some nasty encounters with a couple of geese!
Please keep us posted! Your dc could sure make an exciting story about this experience!
In Christ,
Stacy in MI
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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 1:23pm | IP Logged
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I had to laugh. cock fighting!! No, the "neighbors" are my in-laws. They seem to be the lucky recipients of their children's unwanted roosters. A few of the kids got baby chicks and only wanted to keep the hens. So, they somehow ended up with a bunch of roosters. One of the grown kids just gave them a few MORE roosters, so I assume that there was some sort of battle of turf as the one that is here looked a little beat up as far as having bite marks on his red head parts. (whatever they are called...the crown??) Anyway, cock fighting MIGHT BE a good source of revenue when my husband gets fuloughed soon! JUST KIDDING!, but what a hoot! He seems to be behaving a little better today. Perhaps he is feeling upset that there are no females around and he wonders what his life's vocation will be?  I went on a walk around my circular drive-way today and had to shoo him away with my Rosary once. Otherwise, he just cock-a-doodle-dooed a little, and then watched me from the porch. No sign of the cat since I fed her this morning!! Seriously though, I guess I will have to see if we can somehow get the poor thing back home sometime soon if he is in any way problamatic for the kids. Thanks for the laughs and advice, all!
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 1:26pm | IP Logged
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And who knew that they cock-a-ddodle-dooed all day long! So funny!
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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stellamaris
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 6:00pm | IP Logged
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I'd check to see if the rooster has spurs. Those are long back claws that are on the back of the leg. I have heard that they can be very dangerous, especially to children, but also they can be removed.
Perhaps someone else knows more about this?
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Angel
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 8:43pm | IP Logged
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We've never kept roosters (long) because of the aggression issue. When we raised our heritage breed meat chickens, we had several roosters for a while and my dd (about 10 at the time), who is a bird lover, had a list of which ones she wanted to eat first, if that tells you anything. Her job was to feed them.
You really can't keep that many roosters unless you have a lot of space and a lot of hens. Otherwise, the roosters fight. So your inlaws should probably consider giving most of them away or eating them.
That said, if there's only *one* rooster, he could be nice or he could be mean, it really depends on the bird. Aagot's advice sounds good to me.
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Aagot
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 9:46pm | IP Logged
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Seriously, I have had to knock one to the other side of the coop with a 2x4 and he still bounced back! We had 3 Rhode Island Reds who were a real problem and were given away. Ironically, after the guy came to get them, I thought "hmm, wonder if he is using them for fighting?" I would not have given them to him if I knew for sure.
However, I had a really sweet bantam who defended his girls to the death (fox got him) but he never dreamed of attacking the kids.
I think your rooster would be fine if he is the only male, especially if he had some hens of his own. Your poor inlaws! Really, the purchasers of these birds should go to a store that sells only females. It isn't hard to sex them when they are a day old. Also, just a warning roosters don't taste very good after 6 months.
Glad I gave you all a good laugh
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 10:04pm | IP Logged
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I will never forget the sight of my 5yo blonde-headed angel running for her life across the field with our huge Rhode Island red rooster chasing her, knocking her down and attacking. I was in the house nursing the baby,and saw it out the window. Put the baby in the crib and ran to save her, picking up a baseball bat from the yard as I ran. She managed to get up and run away and I met that rooster head-on, bat in hand. Needless to say that was the end of the rooster and we had chicken and dumplings for dinner.
So, yeah. Roosters are mean. But mamas are meaner. 
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Pilgrim
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| Posted: March 14 2013 at 10:28pm | IP Logged
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We've come to the decision that when we see a rooster showing aggression he has to go, as in our experience with a number of them over the last few years, when a rooster gets the aggression thing going, it usually doesn't get better. we've noticed the roosters that have gotten aggressive seem to feel threatened by toddlers, as they seem to think they are competition or something. the sounds of how he's been rushing up when you come out sounds like a tendency towards aggression. I would definitely get him back over to your in-laws if you can, and if he won't stay there, as someone else suggested, I'd ask them if he can be done away with. It's not pleasant to have to kill an animal, but to us the safety of our younger ones is most important, and who wants to have to spend all the time worrying over if your toddlers are being watched close enough.
The roosters we've had to get rid of even started being aggressive to dh who's 5'11'. To catch him, there's 2 ways to do it, or combine the 2. The easiest way is with a large fishing net, or if he's roosting somewhere at night dh can go up and quickly grab him by the feet, and hold him upside down. Hold on tight! Usually chickens stop flapping pretty soon when you do this, and you can carry them where needed. Hope this all helps a bit!
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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: March 15 2013 at 8:27am | IP Logged
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Thanks everyone for the advice! I think husband is going to try to apprehend him by some sort of net as described and try to take him back home to the in-laws this weekend. I watched my 2 year old yesterday as the rooster pecked around the yard. He was playing in the sand box and the rooster went into the sandbox to get grit. Part of me wanted to test to see if the rooster would ignore Joseph, but after a few seconds, my mothering instincts got the better of me, and I jumped off the porch (a feat for me these days) and ran over there in about 3 giant steps (even though it was 20 feet away! ) and chased him away. One problem I do forsee is that my itty bitty 2 year old boy is quite cockey himself. (takes after his Dad. ) I guess he saw the older boys chasing the rooster away all week, so yesterday HE kept chasing after the rooster! ("too-pid rooster!" he would say as he chased after him on his little legs. )I thought, "Hmm..only a matter of time before the rooster realizes that he is much bigger than little JoeJoe and turns around on him!" Hysterical to see Joseph think he is such a big man though. It always seems to be the smaller kids who have the bigger attitude and level of confidence. So interesting. The other kids have a healthy respect for him, but not the one who should!! He is a really pretty rooster, and it would be really neat to have him in the yard just for interests sake, but I guess the risk might just be too great with the little people about. Husband seemed pretty sure that he needed to go over breakfast this morning, so I guess that will be a weekend project. Hopefully, he will settle in nicely with all the other bachelors next door! Poor fella!
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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Angel
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| Posted: March 15 2013 at 1:07pm | IP Logged
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It depends on the breed, too. I've heard nothing but bad things about Rhode Island Red roosters, but our neighbors have some Buff Orpington roosters that don't seem too bad.
The ones we had problems with were Delawares.
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Topic: how dangerous are roosters?
