A Viewpoint on Handling Roosters: How to Deal with Aggression

So interesting and thorough! I could see my roosters in your roosters and now it makes more sense. My current three are wonderful but sooner or later I'll wind up with a problem child again and I'll come back to reread parts of this. Excellent!

So very well.written and informative...I miss having roos-they are my absolute favorite chook..so full of personality! Thank you for posting this!

As you know I do not raise chickens, but I find a lot of what you've said here to be true as it applies to not just roosters but birds in general. I believe that a lot of birds are thought to be aggressive that are really just terrified. With a little patience sometimes that can be overcome. Great article Banty! Thanks for sharing.

Excellent info; I think a few more pictures would be better, but it's a very good read.

Excellent viewpoints. As a professional dog trainer but new to chicken keeping, I can see the similarities here. I always love when people take time to analyze animals in a species appropriate way.

Thanks for sharing your experience and tips!

I love the silhouette picture at the end of the article

I Think this is a great article! In particular because so many of us are new at raising chickens and especially roosters! I have always liked to watch my animals and chickens so I appreciate the very thoughtful behaviour analysis and examples of same. they help so very much! I would like it even more if the author had gone into depth about raising strait runs and whether or not to allow flock integration and at what age...including young cockerells who may try (in their foolishness) to challenge the established rooster..and how to handle that scenario with some examples of her experiances. Overall, a very important article and in my opinion should be required reading, before becoming papa or mama to a flock of chickens!

Thank you so much--I've been trying to learn more about how to manage roosters. This one is probably one of the best I've read so far.

A lot of helpful and experienced information and well presented. Good stuff to consider.

Excellent read.
Fabulous article.

This is a good article. The author has obviously put a lot of effort into trying to find the best ways to manage male chickens. My approach has been entirely different but then I don't have the same number of chickens and I don't have the same keeping arrangements.
Any attempts to try and understand chickens and male chickens in particular I'm always going to be in favor of. I don't have to agree with the approach to recommend that this article is well worth reading and outlines someones experience rather than regurgitating some of the nonsense that can be found on the web.

The most useful and sensitive article on reading a rooster that I’ve come across yet. Thank you! It will help me realistically assess my own capabilities and that of any animal I have.

I'm relatively new to chickens and brought home my first baby cockerel this spring. I have a few months before I'll need to deal with dominant behavior from my guy, but frankly I had not even considered that aggressiveness would be a concern (duh). This article gives me quite the leg up and I thought the explanations were very clear. Thank you so much for a comprehensive review of body language (chicken and human) and behaviors I can expect by the end of the summer. Hopefully I can manage to avoid major confrontations.

I loved this article! So much time and insight from someone who really knows their stuff. Greatly appreciate the in depth knowledge into roo behavior as well as my own. So much of what you said has sharpened my own insight and cleared up some questions I had. We are first time (& first year) owners and learning as we go. This is one article I will keep and read over and over again! Thank you.

I've used this method for several years now. It has worked very well! It really taught me how to speak "rooster".

Fantastic, well written article complete with photos and video examples. What more could one ask for?

Very well thought out! There's a lot of good information here, presented in a clear, easy-to-follow manner. It's a good read for anyone contemplating a few cockerels in the flock or dealing with a feathered "problem child." The recommendation to read Temple Grandin's work is a good one, too. If you don't have time to work through the books, look for the speeches and video shorts on YouTube. They're pretty much all good!

Really fun to read. You're a good writer.

I've set myself a personal goal to learn a new thing about raising and managing my flock every day. April 12, check .