My petit eight year old is a bit intimidated by our banty rooster who is just coming into maturity at six months. Any suggestions on making his talons and spurs less sharp? He doesn't fly up at me, but then again I don't chase the hens like the boy sometimes does.I have heard that you can clip the spurs off these birds - is this safe for him? Seems like he'd still be well armed with the other talons. Thanks.
I have a little banty also and he's a vicious little guy. He recently started going for people's heads (I have a six year old and he started on her). He came at me yesterday and his beak made a little cut on my ear which made me decide that the "no hitting/kicking the chickens" rule will be revoked for him.
I'm pretty sure that you can remove the spurs, but on mine that isn't the problem. I'm not sure what to do with him - I'm sure that part of the problem is that my bantam hen got killed and he's the only banty left - he tries to get, uh, "satisfaction" with the much larger hens but I don't think it works out the way he wants it to [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]...
My daughter won't let me kill him (yet), but that is about the only real solution to getting him to stop that I can think of.
When I was about 12 years old, we had a White Leghorn rooster that I broke from attacking people simply by grabbing him by the legs and dipping (submerging) him in the cows' watering trough. It only took two baths to cure him; the second one I held him under almost too long and thought I'd killed him (and that Dad would kill me), but he recovered. I don't know whether that would work with the bantams, but I'll bet it would.
Well, in this case the submersion only *might* kill him [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]. Next time he takes a nick out of my ear he's likely to get a twisted neck (when I finally catch him [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]).
>>I'm pretty sure that you can remove the spurs, but on mine that isn't the problem
Forget about removing the spurs...better to remove the head...that will solve the problem [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
My wife got attacked just about 3 weeks ago by my big Rhode Island Red rooster. It was not pretty. She called it basically an direct injection of chicken sh*t into her leg, which got infected almost immediately and required high doses of antibitotics to knock it down.
Espcially with kids around, you don't need a nasty animal...better safe than sorry.
I haven't killed mine yet...but he is in isolation for now....
We removed their spurs with a pair of pliers. No problem. Some people heat a potato and put it over the spur to make it softer, then pull it off with pliers. I noticed after their spurs were removed, their ego was changed a little. If they are still aggressive, then send them to the dinner table! Don't wait until they hurt someone.
My Rhode Island Red attacked my leg when he was fairly young & his spurs weren't sharp. This was his first attack, and I fortunately had a 1x4 stake in my hand. I immediately pushed & hit him away from me (not hard enough to hurt more than his pride) and pushed him out of the coop. He keeps his distance now, never comes closer than two feet and only that close if there's a fence or something between us. I think our first encounter settled the pecking order. He still attacks our egg bowl when my wife is collecting eggs, but fortunately our nexting boxes have back door access for safety in collecting eggs.
Thanks for your sugestions everyone. I think I will try the intimidation route first. The last aggresive rooster I had went the way of the soup pot. Felled him with a well aimed stone from ten feet away and chopped off his head before he gad time to think about what hit him! This bird is really beautiful - the pride of the flock (and knows it) He was a freebie in a batch of pullets from Murray Mcmurray and looks kind of like a Silver Penciled Hamburg. I think immersion might be just right for him! Mark
BTW If someone who uses a Mac could explain to me how to use the smilies that are part of the repl to page i'd appreciate it :-)
I just wanted to add my two cents...
a couple of years ago I was doing farm chores for a friend. He also had a rooster who had acted somewhat aggresively in the past. I had my three year old daughter with me...she was standing immediately behind me...the rooster spurred her in the face and she now has two long scars on her cheek and next to her eye (!!!!!). It was HORRIBLE. No rooster is worth keeping after they show aggresive behaviour. Kill it YESTERDAY!!
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