A friend gave us her aggressive 1 year old Jersey Giant roo because she didn’t want to slaughter him herself. The idea was to take him home and make him into coq au vin. But as we were leaving, the friend’s husband remarked that he actually likes this rooster, that he’s not really that bad, and is a good protector of his hens – so we figured, give him a few days in our coop and see how he does. But sure enough, this morning I go out to feed everyone and he starts flying at me and trying to spur me.

Now, I’d still kind of like to keep this bird if this is a correctable problem – he’s gorgeous, and the size of the Jersey Giants tends to discourage predation (a big problem in my area), plus they’re usually pretty docile chickies. But I’ve never dealt with an aggressive roo before, so I looked some stuff up. Encouragingly, some people write that he may just be going through puberty (Jersey Giants mature more slowly, apparently, so the timing may be right) and would calm down in a few months. In any event, many posts and articles talk about a training technique for aggressive roos of picking him up when he’s attacking and holding him till he calms down and submits by keeping his head down.

I am, relatively speaking, a bird noob. I’ve handled chickens before but those were all young birdies who were never aggressive. None of the articles or posts I’ve found explained how to go about safely (well, relatively safely) picking up a bird who is actively attacking you. Do I just layer up, maybe wear goggles and expect to get pecked and spurred? Will he continue to fight for a bit after I grab him or calm down pretty quickly? And does this method actually work?

Or is it totally silly to even bother trying with this guy? Some posts say, just cull him so you don’t breed aggression into your flock. I don’t mind dispatching him to the stewpot if that’s the best thing to do here, but figured it’s worth a discussion first.

Topics: farming, animals, birds, adolescence, chickens, livestock, aggression