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Gentle rooster breed

B

Bkpigs

Member
Just had to shoot my head rooster with the 44 after he went after my littlest daughter and cut her face. Hindsight I should have caught him and butchered him but the 44 seemed the best at the time. Any ways, do you guys have any ideas on a good gentle breed I could get for a rooster? Seems like the Rhode Island Red roosters have an attitude ( that is what he was).

Thanks!
 
Guess your doing something wrong. I have many roosters and none have ever been mean. Buff Orpfithens (sp) and bar rocks. I also have a Batem that if not mean
 
The only gentle Rooster I ever saw was one with his head off
and even they they would flop around trying to get you.
Giggle
Walt
 
Bkpigs,

I hope that your little girl recovers well and doesn't have an inordinate fear of chickens in the future.

I had a pretty close friend back in the late 1970s who only had one eye. He had lost the other one to a rooster on his grandfather's farm in Iowa when he was a little boy.

Accidents happen in a moment but sometimes have life-long consequences.

Tom in TN
 
Any rooster that is of age, and has hens is going to be a miserable cuss.

My daughter's pet rooster "flew away" in the night a while back to live on another farm where he was needed more... couldn't risk him hurting the kids.
 
It all depends on each roosters temperament. I've had barred
rocks, that were nasty, and ones that were friendly. No I don't
keep roosters anymore. Only good rooster for me is no
rooster! Lol
 
thanks for the concerns. She seems fine, I took her out after I shot him and showed her he was dead and had her help me throw him in the back of the property. She didn't seem scared around the other chickens so hopefully she will understand he was just a bad apple.

As for doing something wrong, I think you can ask anyone with RIR roosters and if they didn't have at least one come after them they haven't been raising them long.
 
Ages ago when we started with chickens I culled out the nasty ones and bred from the quiet one and had pretty good luck getting even lively breeds like OE bantams where the roosters were tamer. If you want something "off the shelf" I can highly recommend large Brahmas, Orpington, Cochin or the like. Seems like the big Asiatics have better temperments. I breed show type light Brahma large fowl so I may be prejudiced, but we have had a couple dozen roosters at a time and not a mean one in the lot. Teach your kids how to behave around livestock also. Each kind has it's own set of triggers and you don't want to do something to set them off.
 
We've had good luck with standard sized Salmon Faverolle, they also come bantam. We also keep only one around so they don't feel the need to compete for the hens. He keeps 37 hens happy enough. HTH Mike
 
Killer is a barred rock hes got 11 people so far
good think for him he likes legs .hes better
than a watch dog and cheap entertanment but
one of these days
 
RI reds are a mess. I don't even like the hens. About the best luck I have had with roosters is with Buff Orpingtons. I only had one of those that was bossy. He learned pretty quick.
 
Probably not quite what you had in mind but if handled enough while growing up they come to see humans as friendly. We had a small flock of chickens when I was young and we picked up the chicks and petted them routinely while feeding and even when grown you could pick up any of them feed them a bit of corn from your hand and put them back. We had dogs too and the chickens knew our dogs and didn't bother them. Our dogs completely ignored the chickens--I guess they figured they were mobile lawn art as they did like to chase squirrels.
 
It all started with 3 in 1977.
<a href="http://s982.photobucket.com/user/DiscoStuLives/media/Chickens/PD_0288_zps16e7459d.jpg.html" target="_blank">
PD_0288_zps16e7459d.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo PD_0288_zps16e7459d.jpg"
</a>
Some other were added sometime but the next picture I have was of some we, well a chosen hen, was allowed to hatch in 1979--not all her eggs.
<a href="http://s982.photobucket.com/user/DiscoStuLives/media/Chickens/PD_0316_zps46e455ea.jpg.html" target="_blank">
PD_0316_zps46e455ea.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo PD_0316_zps46e455ea.jpg"
</a>
<a href="http://s982.photobucket.com/user/DiscoStuLives/media/Chickens/PD_0315_zpse744a052.jpg.html" target="_blank">
PD_0315_zpse744a052.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo PD_0315_zpse744a052.jpg"
</a>
Here are some of them in 1980.
<a href="http://s982.photobucket.com/user/DiscoStuLives/media/Chickens/PD_0327_zpse6ef7668.jpg.html" target="_blank">
PD_0327_zpse6ef7668.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo PD_0327_zpse6ef7668.jpg"
</a>
And another picture of probably all we had in 1984.
<a href="http://s982.photobucket.com/user/DiscoStuLives/media/Chickens/PD_0409_zpsd20499a4.jpg.html" target="_blank">
PD_0409_zpsd20499a4.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo PD_0409_zpsd20499a4.jpg"
</a>
Some stayed around through a move from VA to NC in 1985 till probably 1987/8. They were true free range chickens during the day and secured at night but we stopped raising chicks and eventually old age and roaming neighborhood dog/dogs finished them off. I'd like to have some again some day. I'm not sure the breed--I think multiple breeds but they were small. They didn't really cause any problems, they just hung around the edge of the woods behind us mostly scratching in the leaves--didn't wander off either stayed mostly in the back yard of our 1 acre lot. We had a couple roosters most of the time. One rooster was dominant and had most hens but the other had one or two hens that followed him around. Each rooster roosted with their hens on opposite sides of their little house which was divided in the middle with chicken wire.
 
Honestly I think it"s luck of the draw.

The most laid back rooster I ever had was a black cochin. But I never had another to know if it was the breed.

Actually I think what made him so laid back is he was in with the worst rooster I ever had, a big black java. The cochin knew his place in the pecking order and never even gave an intruder a second glance.

So if you want a mellow rooster, you may want to consider raising two together and keeping the nicest one once they"ve fully established who"s who.

Although, nice thing about an aggressive rooster is he will protect the hens if they"re free ranging. That black java would kick the butt of anything that went after his ladies. Hawks, foxes, etc. Big and mean, but just doing his job. Never lost any hens when he was around.

But I get it, with kids around, not so good. My kids named that big rooster Loki, and they all used to have to carry around what they called "loki sticks" anytime they were in that part of the yard, to defend themselves. There used to be loki sticks lying everywhere.
 
by the way - Loki was raised by my daughter - the queen of all chickens.

That bird was handled more than any chicken ever was. He was brought to more shows and passed around to so many kids I can't even describe it.

Did NOTHING for his temperament!

He'd still rip her to shreds if she didn't have a stick to push him away with.

Funny thing is, once she'd grab him and hold him, he'd be perfectly fine. But grabbing him was an art form only she had a talent for.
 
Stay away from the Polish rooosters - the hens are about as good as it gets as far as behavior around humans (almost like pets). The roosters, on the other hand, are meek and mild UNTIL they reach maturity. Then they develop a mean spirit.

After his first attack attempts, I maintained an "attitude switch". All that managed to teach him was to attack when you weren"t looking. After that, I carried him to the deep woods and let him fight with the hawks and owls. I guess he didn"t win because I never saw him again!
 
Unless you are raising your own chicks you don't need a rooster. If you like something strutting around making noise get a couple of guinea hens, way cooler than chickens anyway.

Nate

PS I have 25,000 chicks under my care, 1/3 of those are roosters and I just as soon they weren't
 
That's why it's only hens for us. I would be blasting roosters too if they got too cocky with my kids. You know I started with 8 and you would think a fox or hawk would have thinned them out, not a dang one of them has disappeared. And I heard we're getting more this spring....
 
we have a rare gentile RIR first one I've ever seen in my life. when my kids were young we had white leghorns and we never had any problems, they seem to be pretty mellow roos.
 
Funny. I have had chickens for well over a decade and NEVER had a mean rooster. Now I have had a few geese that where mean but never a rooster
 
As a child on the hard scrabble farm, vhen ve had leghorns the roosteers vere very aggressive, ve switched to White Wyandote and the roosters' not sew aggressive. New Hampshire reds vere a docile bunch as vell. Domineckers vere OK.
 
When I was a kid, about, 70 years ago, We sold eggs to a hatchery. The hatchery owned the roosters and we owned the hens (RIRs). Roosters had a high pedigree, worth $100 and that was when a hundred was like a thousand today. I killed one with an ax handle. Of course I set a trap for the fox but never caught him.
 
I have RI Reds and I too have had touchy roosters. Last one would try to catch you from behind but after using him for a football a few times has found it wiser to change his ways.
My choice would be a Buff Orpington for a gentle breed. Also have a few of them.
 
I don't know about the different breeds but I had a white one that was a real fighter. Of course he had a little encouragement from me. :twisted: He now appears at the beginning of all my youtube videos. But yes, if you have kids around you don't want that kind of a bird as they can do real damage. Even to adults, if you don't have appropriate foot gear, they can tear you up with those curved claws on their legs. I have Bantams now and those little roosters will fight like crazy amongst themselves but I have never known them to show aggression to humans.
 
I"m not an authority on the different breeds of roosters, but I agree with the football thing. All of the roosters I"ve had in the past didn"t like me gathering the eggs and would try to spur me. One mostly white one was particularly ornery. I punted him over the fence and then had to catch and throw back once. After that he knew he better not do more than protest.
 
Wife and I kept Rhode Island and New Hampshire reds for many, many years. The hens were always very docile, and my daughter used to go down to the chicken lot with her little plastic chair and a book and sing to the hens. They would just cluck and nibble at her feet quite happily.

I always liked the Reds because they were so hardy. Had real problems with dog packs in the area, and sometimes a few mutts would show up and worry the flock. Several occasions they killed a number of hens (not eating them of course), and injured a good many. Peroxide in the wounds, and most all survived. Lead for the dogs, and most all died.

Had one rooster though that was a regular tyrant. Went after my youngest daughter one day in the yard, and tried to spur and flog her. Scared Sarah, who was four at the time, so bad, she turned and ran smack into the wall of the house trying to get away. Not once, but three times. You would have thought she was trying to just go through the wall. The rooster would not let up until I was able to run up and kick him for a field goal.

Long story short, I didn't kill him that day 9was our only rooster), but he got his come uppence later that summer when he became a victim of the marauding dogs.

At the time, I worried Sarah would become terrified of chickens, so my wife and I spent many an occasion down in the chicken lot with the friendly birds and Sarah. We told her that not all chickens were ugly, and most were quite nice. Just like people. All you had to do was to learn how to spot the bad eggs (sorry about the pun).

As far as chickens go, she got over her fear quickly, and to this day loves the birds. As for people, she apparently never learned the lesson. The guy she is saddled with is a real parasite. Lazy, will not get a job, help with chores, or better his or their lot.

I call him the Tick.
 
Rotflmao!!! That brings back memories! Back in the day when all the local grocery stores bought eggs every morning Pop had around 400 chickens and they were mostly RI Reds. Always had a bunch of roosters around. They all had a bad attitude, but we had one orney old booger that would come for you the instant you opened the door to the coop. Had to punt that sucker across the coop about four or five times every morning before he had enough and I could gather eggs in peace. Kinda had a soft spot for the orney old coot though. He killed every mouse that ventured into the coop and he would harass the rats until they would give up and skidaddle out of the coop. Never did butcher him. Let him die of old age and he got nastier as he got older, too!

A while back the magazine Backyard Poultry had an article that said the Buff Orphington roosters were quite docile.
 
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