Aggressive roosters: How I tame mine with love in 6 simple steps
I received this message from one of my blog readers, Mike, about his rooster, Allen:
“The little bugger attacked me yesterday. Bad chicken. I’ve been reading online about how to modify this little aggressive streak…
Of course, I worry that it’s hard to judge just how physical to get, me being so much larger and stronger then old fluffy britches. But the behavior is really quite unacceptable. Any input?”
Allen, the beloved feisty rooster.
The quote above is actually just a snippet from Mike’s email. We exchanged a couple on this topic as Allen became quite aggressive to Mike over a very short period of time, to the point where Mike had a difficult time getting work done outside, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep Allen.
Allen was a beloved rescue, so Mike was motivated to put the time and work into modifying Allen’s behavior.
I did have some great suggestions to share with him.
In this article, you’ll learn how to tame an aggressive rooster using positive method dog training techniques. These are the techniques I’ve used in the past to change aggressive roosters into sweethearts.
You don’t need to be violent with your rooster. You don’t need to scare your rooster. And you don’t even need to dominate him or “show him who’s boss.” In fact, if you want to have a healthy relationship with your rooster, you don’t ever want to do any of those things.
Here, you’ll learn what to do instead.
Disclaimer: Please note I am not a professional trainer, and you need to do your own due diligence before taking action. This article is simply my own opinion from my own personal experience. Roosters can be very dangerous, and training them shouldn’t be taken lightly. Only you can decide if the risks of working with your roosters are worth it.
This post contains affiliate links for my favorite products from Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
Below is my response (slightly modified) to Mike’s email above (and a few others we exchanged on this topic), in regards to how I reformed my ultra-aggressive rooster, Quiggles. And how Mike could apply the same techniques to reform feisty Allen.
I’ve divided my response into sections with headlines to make reading it easier for you.
Partnership NOT domination: The best approach for taming an aggressive rooster
The approach I took with my rooster, Quiggles, is the same approach I use when training dogs. In a nutshell, it’s a partnership (rather than a domination) approach, and it involves associating good behavior with positive feelings so your rooster WANTS to do what you want him to do.
However, the one MAJOR difference between a punk rooster and an untrained dog is simply that your rooster is a punk (from our perspective anyway; from his, you’re the punk!). It’s very rare to start with an aggressive dog—they may puppy bite or jump up on you out of excitement, but they’re not actually trying to hurt you, unlike our dear roosters.
And so, before you can really apply positive dog training techniques to Allen, you’ll first need to get his aggression level low enough that he can be susceptible to learning—that’s steps 1 and 2 below.
Rooster training supplies
Before you get started, you’ll need to make sure you have the right supplies to more safely work with your aggressive rooster.
Lots of layers! I wore sweatpants underneath jeans and fleece underneath a down coat.
Tall rubber boots. I get mine cheap at Walmart, but basically, the more of your legs they cover, the better.
Heavy gloves or oven mitts (or both). Your rooster will likely be biting your hand during this training.
Head and face protection, if your rooster is ultra-aggressive. I use a brush cutter helmet.
Treats (something quickly consumable). I use dried mealworms, which I pick up from my local farm supply store.
An enclosure. When you are outside and not working with your rooster, you don’t want to allow him to attack you. So, be sure to lock your rooster up when you’re outside if you need to—either in his coop or run, a mesh pen, a wooden-framed pen, or some other safe pen you can provide.
6 steps to end your rooster’s aggression
Step 1: When you’re not training your rooster, do not allow him to attack you.
Roosters can learn very fast and are very food motivated, but Allen isn’t going to change overnight.
Penning Allen when you're outside and not able to work with him is a good idea—perhaps even vital. That way he's not reinforcing bad habits by attacking you when you are vulnerable (i.e., holding supplies, carrying your hay bucket, interacting with other animals, etc.). I think you'll have a lot easier time training him and transforming your relationship when you are able to control all of your interactions with him on your terms.
So, if you are able to do so, lock Allen in his coop or run, or put him in a temporary mesh pen or wooden-framed pen (you can even build your own), or maybe put him in your shop while you’re doing other animal chores or spending time outside. If you have a hard time getting him into the enclosure, perhaps you could lure him in with food, or gently shoo him in with your broom?
You won’t be able to train him while you’re doing chores at the same time—he needs the controlled environment described below to begin (no distractions). So, if you’re able to pen him up in the meantime when you’re not working with him, that may make your life a lot less stressful.
I actually read an article from a sanctuary owner who had an aggressive rooster and she would do something similar. She had the top cover of a large birdcage that she would put on top of the rooster whenever she was outside. The cover was a part of a cage, so the rooster could still see through it and get good airflow. She said the rooster came to expect it, and he’d come up to her and wait for her to put the cover on top of him each day (although he’d still attack if she failed to cover him).
Step 2: Change your rooster’s dominant/submissive mentality into a partnership mentality.
Quiggles, my reformed punk rooster.
When your rooster full-on attacks you, he wants to put you in a fight or flight mode. He wants you to either run away (and show you’re submissive), or he wants you to fight him. Ultimately, he’ll want to win this fight, but if he doesn’t, he’ll become submissive, at least for a time.
Even if, best-case scenario, you don’t hurt your rooster when you force him into submission, you’ve still taught him that you’re his opponent—a rival, and not a friend. And if you want to be buddies with your rooster or have any sort of amicable relationship, which you’ve indicated you do, this is not the way to do it.
So, the first thing you need to do is stop playing the dominance game altogether. You need to teach him that you will neither dominate him (fight) nor submit to him (flight).
Here’s how I did that with Quiggles—and I actually adapted and modified this from techniques used by an animal science professor who used to run a chicken sanctuary as a hobby. She’d seen her share of aggressive roosters.
The first step is self-protection. I put on lots of layers. I put on sweatpants under my jeans, and I had a fleece jacket underneath my down coat (it was cold enough out, this was not a problem). I wore oven mitts on my hands, and rubber boots to my knees.
And, because I am short and Quiggles was particularly aggressive, I also wore my husband’s brush-cutter helmet. This helmet has a wire mesh that covers the face, so if Quiggles were to flog or bite me in the face, I’d be protected. Not sure if you need that type of protection with Allen or not. I only wore the helmet for my first 2 sessions with Quiggles.
After putting on the proper attire, I approached Quiggles with a very calm demeanor and I talked to him in a soft, kind voice the whole time. I actually baby-talked him because that’s what I do with my chickens and Quiggles responds well to baby talk. But if baby talk is not up your alley, I’m sure a soft, calm, friendly voice will do.
And then I just let Quiggles attack me, and I didn’t react at all—this was possible because the attack didn’t hurt much with all the layers I had on. It’s important here that you remain totally calm and relaxed with your body language, and that you continue talking to your rooster kindly, because by doing so, you are showing him that his aggressive behavior has absolutely no effect on you. You are not going to fight (dominate), and you are not going to flee (submit).
When you fight back or flee, you are giving him exactly what he wants, and that reinforces his aggressive behavior. On the other hand, by responding in a way that shows his aggression doesn’t even phase you, you are teaching him that he will not get a fight or flight response out of you. His energy is completely wasted.
And you are also showing him that you are not afraid of him (and won’t submit), but you also don’t want to dominate him.
When I worked with Quiggles, he tired himself out after about 5 minutes of heavy attacking, and I was able to move on to step 3 in that very same session. However, I did read an article from a sanctuary worker who said that with some really aggressive roosters, it can take a while for them to calm down, and the worker will actually leave after the rooster calms down, and then the worker will do the same thing the next day and the next, until the rooster’s aggression lowers to a more manageable level.
So, you may need to do this Step 2 for many days with your rooster before moving on.
I suspect with Allen your experience will be more like mine was with Quiggles, but if he’s more aggressive, you’ll just need to stick with step 2 longer. Wait to leave until Allen has stopped being aggressive.
You also could do step 2 multiple times throughout the day if you’re around a lot (multiple 5-10 minutes sessions). Just approach him kindly with relaxed body language and calm words (never stop talking nicely to him), wait for him to settle down and stop fighting, and leave. He should improve over time, and possibly quickly.
But like I said, Quiggles got bored quickly with attacking me when I stopped reacting to it—only lasting about 5 minutes, and so I could move on to step 3 in our very first session. But I still did have to start with step 2 a couple more times with him in subsequent sessions—I only worked with Quiggles once a day, so for the first few days, I started with step 2 because he was still attacking me straight away—but the attack was very short-lived in the subsequent sessions.
Step 3: Get down at your rooster’s level—communicate through eye contact, body language, and a kind tone of voice.
Once your rooster has gotten that uncontrollable attack out of his system, now you can actually work on building a new relationship with him and teaching him to behave more amicably.
Let me be clear here, your rooster is still a big jerk at step 3, but he should be calm enough not to attack you unprovoked when you’re standing still.
In this step, you want to get down at your rooster’s level so you can maintain eye contact. I do this by simply squatting down next to Quiggles. The first couple of times I did this, I still wore the brush cutter helmet that provided some face protection, just to be safe. And he didn’t actually go for my face at all, so I stopped wearing it after our second session.
The point of this step is to work on bonding and communication through eye contact. Chickens in general respond very strongly to eye contact. Even my super flighty chickens—if I have to pick them up for a health check or anything, they freak out and desperately try to get away, but as soon as I give them eye contact and a few gentle words, they settle down immediately.
Another example—we have to Dremel one of my rooster’s spurs because they get out of control long and cut his legs if we don’t (this is a non-aggressive rooster, named Rufio). The trimming doesn’t hurt him at all, but it absolutely terrifies him. So as my husband dremels his spurs, I get close, give him strong eye contact, and baby talk to him, and he calms down completely. The second I stop, he gets really upset, starts screaming, and struggles to get away again. At which point, I give him eye contact and baby talk and that immediately calms him.
And eye contact with Quiggles was no different—it has a strong effect and is essential for forming a bond. And even today, if he ever attacks my legs (very rare occurrence at this point—more on this below), as soon as I can get him to look me in the eye, he immediately stops and turns sweet.
But initially, I had to squat down to his level to get that eye contact. And the first time I did this, he still acted aggressively. He had his hackle feathers out, squared off (you know how they face you straight on when they want to attack), and if I moved my arm at all, he’d bite or spur it.
But I kept working for that eye contact again and talked sweetly to him the whole time. And again, I didn’t react to his aggression at all. I pretend he’s not being aggressive, and then he really does settle pretty quickly—he shares eye contact and pecks at the ground.
Another tip here. When I get down at his level, I always angle my body a bit sideways so that I’m not facing him straight on. This helps to communicate I’m not being aggressive because aggressive chickens always face you straight on.
By angling sideways, you are communicating through your body language that you’re not being aggressive (nor are you afraid).
And actually, I’ve found something kind of amazing here. Sometimes when I was at Quiggles’ level, he would move to face me straight on, aggressively—and I mean he would move in front of me so I was facing him straight on too. And then I would just pivot backward a bit on my foot, and that would put us side-by-side. I would be next to him so he could only see me from his eye that was closest to me.
It would have taken him a mere fraction of a second to pivot and face me straight on again if he wanted, but he usually wouldn’t. He would immediately put his hackles down and peck at the ground.
When chickens aren’t being aggressive, they usually look at you from the side of their head from just one eye, and so whenever I pivoted into that side-by-side position, for that mere moment, it caused Quiggles to look at me from only one eye. I also looked at him “sideways” instead of straight on. Obviously, I can’t look at him from just one eye since both my eyes are on the front of my head, but I did look at him from an angle to communicate I didn’t want to fight.
And that stopped his aggression in that moment and he went to acting like a typical chicken, hackles down, pecking the ground. And after a minute, he may hackle up again, but I’d do this same trick and pivot, and he’d hackle down.
Regardless of if you try this pivot trick or not, in this step you want to get Allen to give you eye contact and to stop behaving aggressively before you move on. Once you can get Allen to the point where he can be next to you without attacking while you’re squatting still next to him, it’s time to introduce food into the mix.
Quiggles was always able to complete this step 3 in a short period of time, usually a few minutes. Allen may do better or worse.
Step 4: Reinforce good behavior with food.
I suggest doing step 4 and step 3 together if possible. The sooner you can introduce treats for good behavior, the easier it will be because now you can make a new association for Allen.
Before, he viewed you as a rival and associated you with fight or flight. You’ve already been working to break that association (by neither fighting nor fleeing), and now you can work to form a new association, one that will be very positive for Allen.
And here’s where you can start training Allen with the same techniques you would use to obedience train a dog. Your ultimate goal is to be able to move around and act normally without Allen being aggressive. So, you want to reward Allen for even the tiniest move he makes towards that goal.
You’ll want to have treats in your pocket or very easily accessible. I usually use dried mealworms, but anything that Allen likes will do, although nothing too large. You want him to be able to just take a bite from your palm, and not to spend the next 20 seconds devouring something. A quick bite will keep him in the moment.
So, when you’re in your squatting position, if Allen is not attacking you, immediately give him a taste of the treat out of the palm of your hand. If he continues to be good, give him another taste a few seconds later. Continue for a little while. All the while, talk to him in your calm, friendly voice, and make sure you are getting plenty of eye contact with him.
When I do this step with Quiggles, I always angle my body (again, don’t face him straight on), and I feed him from the hand that is furthest away.
I find if I try to get the food out of my pocket from the hand near to him, he’ll hackle up and bite that hand. He sees the hand movement as a threat, whereas he doesn’t really notice the movement if I use the hand away from him (and I maintain eye contact while I do this).
This also allows me to use my bare hand for the treat, whereas I leave an oven mitt on my hand closest to Quiggles, so if he does attack, it doesn’t hurt.
Step 5: Begin small movements and reward any positive behavior.
Once I could stand still in my squat and feed Quiggles without attack, the next step was movement. Quiggles viewed any movement of my arms as aggressive. If I just barely moved my arm up, he’d attack it.
So, after Quiggles was good with steps 3 and 4, I started to just barely move my arm up—this is the arm closest to him with the oven mitt on. I moved the arm very slowly, and not very far, just a few inches. Initially, he attacked it immediately, biting at it. It was an automatic reaction I couldn’t have stopped.
This is normal. If Allen attacks your arm, don’t move it back down, just keep it still in the air and let him attack it. Continue to speak calmly and don’t react. He’ll stop when he sees his attack isn’t doing anything.
When he stops, give him a treat. I usually make sure I have eye contact with him again first. I don’t want to make him think he’s getting rewarded for attacking, so I wait till I have eye contact and his attention is on me and not my arm. This usually happens very quickly, within a second or two, and then I give him the treat.
Then move your arm again, just an inch. If he attacks it, wait until he’s stopped (basically do the same thing as above).
Soon, you’ll get to a point where you can move your arm and he’ll hesitate on attacking it. He might hackle out and look at it, but he doesn’t bite or spur right away. This is where you want to redirect to the food as fast as you can before he has a chance to bite or spur.
If he hesitates for even a split second, immediately give him the food. This both breaks his attention from your arm, but also rewards him for hesitating. Even just the tiniest behavior change in a positive direction is worth rewarding with a treat.
After you do this a few times, your rooster will hesitate more and more (maybe only hackling a little, or maybe only squaring off to your arm, but not hackling)—reward, reward, reward. And eventually you can move your arm around without your rooster reacting to it at all. He becomes habituated to the movement and no longer associates it with aggression.
It took Quiggles several sessions to get to that point of not reacting to the arm at all, but he did stop attacking the arm pretty quickly. So, I could move my arm around without getting bitten or spurred, but he would still square off and look alarmed. I got him to this point in the first session, but I did have to repeat these steps for several sessions. With each session, he would get to this point of non-aggression more quickly.
Step 6: Teach your rooster not to attack when you’re walking around.
Eventually, you can move both arms around, and you can stand up and start walking around. When I got to the walking around point with Quiggles, he would attack my boots. And I honestly believe that he still does not fully understand that my boots are a part of me.
At first, no matter how much I talked to him and tried to get him to look up at me, he would stare intensely at my boots, hackled out. This is of course what roosters do when they’re fighting. They square off and have intense eye contact. Quiggles would not break this “eye contact” with my boots.
I would initially squat down to get eye contact with Quiggles, and he would immediately calm down and act normal. When I stood up and tried to walk, he’d go for my boots again. I’d squat down, get eye contact and he’d stop… It takes some time.
Eventually, when Quiggles was facing off with my boots, I could get him to look up at me while I was standing, by taking my pointer finger from down by side and sweeping it up to my eyes (the “look at me” command for dogs) and saying, “Quiggles, look at me.”
When teaching this, I first started in a squatting position with the command (with treats), and when he learned that, I’d do it leaning over a bit, and then finally standing up. I just did this a few times with him every day. He learned pretty quickly.
And now, when he squares off and hackles at my feet (which he still does rarely), I do the “look at me” command. He looks up, gives me eye contact, and immediately settles. I also worked on lifting my leg and sticking my foot out at him (slowly and I never make contact with him, just raise it in the air), which he interprets as aggression.
Again, I did this in baby steps and used the “look at me” command (with treats) to break his attention from the boot, and just like with my arm, he became habituated to my boot moving around. I still don’t think he knows my boot is part of me, but it doesn’t matter because he’s habituated to it anyway.
You might eventually want to try this approach with your hay bucket.* Leave the bucket empty, and try to get Allen habituated to the bucket on the ground first, and then you can work on picking up the bucket and setting it down, and then finally work on you walking around with the bucket. Teaching Allen with tiny steps in a controlled environment like this is key.
*The reason I talked about the hay bucket in the paragraph above is because Mike told me Allen constantly attacked him whenever he (Mike) was carrying his hay bucket. You can easily adjust this advice to your particular situation.
Parting thoughts on training aggressive roosters with kindness
Always remember your goal—to reform his behavior through partnership.
I hope this all makes sense. You can see that this is all about baby steps. You want to always reward your rooster for doing the right thing or for even considering doing the right thing (which he shows through split-second hesitation).
And you don’t want to reward his bad behavior. Remember, when he attacks, he wants a reaction (fight or flight—that’s his reward). By not giving him that, he learns that he can’t get what he wants by attacking. And he learns that he cannot have a dominant/submissive relationship with you. This opens the door to a partnership or friend relationship.
The food rewards help him to associate his good behavior with food, and they also help to strengthen your bond with him, so he associates you with good feelings. Your kind demeanor (relaxed and showing no fear or anger) and your calm voice are a model for him. You’re essentially teaching him to mirror your behavior, and you’re redefining your relationship as one that is calm and amicable.
How long will training a rooster take?
Training a rooster this way may take some time, just like obedience training a dog takes time. Some may learn very quickly and others very slowly. And, just like dogs, Allen might improve and then slide back into old habits. That’s normal. You’ll just have to retrain, and it does tend to go faster the next time around.
I can say, however, that Quiggles showed improvement after just one session. Before our first session, I was no longer able to sit down and visit with my hens because Quiggles would viciously attack me as soon as I approached or tried to sit down.
But the very first time I worked with Quiggles, I sat down with my hens afterward. He looked like he thought about attacking, but he didn’t. That was after just one session.
You may need to retrain periodically if your rooster slips back into old habits (this is natural and happens with dog training too).
Quiggles has been pretty great with me overall. He slips up with the occasional surprise bite, but sometimes I think he just does that to get my attention. He never follows through with any attack.
And to be honest, I have half-assed his training. Training him is difficult with all the other chickens around. Training is most effective in a completely controlled environment without distractions, and Quiggles hasn’t had that.
And then I was never that consistent. I’d train for a week and then stop, and then later train again. But even with this half-assed approach, he’s had major positive behavioral changes. Overall, he’s quite sweet.
If you commit to a consistent training schedule (even just 10 minutes a day, every day), you could eventually turn your rooster into a lap chicken, if that’s what you want.
An update on Mike’s rooster, Allen
Mike informed me that he did start to use some of these techniques with Allen, and Allen was responding positively. Mike said, “…we seemed to be reaching a mutual respect for personal space.”
But sadly, Allen wasn’t around for too much longer. He disappeared one day and Mike could find no trace of him anywhere. Allen was very likely a victim of predation, the sad fate of many of our free-range chickens.
Mike said this of the situation:
“So we are left with a beautiful picture one of our friends took of him and memories… We do miss him, his constant presence and his commanding personality.”
A beautiful photo of a beautiful rooster—Allen.