Rooster attacking Hen

Short background story.  I started out with 6 chicks.  Chicken math went wrong.  I eneded up 5 cocks and one hen.  I purchased 4 icelandics, was told they were all hens.  Ended up with 2 and 2.  Had to cull 5.  At this point I had 2 cocks and 3 hens. Purchased 4 more hens.  2 Americanas and 2 Easter Eggers.  So sitting at 2 cocks and 7 hens.  Neighbour doesn't keep over winter, got 4 more hens.  3 RIR and 1 leghorn.  I'm pretty much a pro at the introduction of newbies to the flock by now.  2 weeks goes by and my rock barred attacks the leghorn causing a nasty head wound.  He also starts attacking my 2 little girls.  In the stew point he goes. End result is 1 roo and 11 hens.  The leghorn is completely healed.  3 weeks later my iclenadic roo attacks the leghorn again.  She becomes a house chicken for a month, completely healed.  Wanted to get her out before winter.  She was doing good until he wants again attacks her. I cage her in a large dog kennel within the coop.  I always make sure she's healed before allowing her to go with flock.  But he keeps attacking and causing a severe head wound.  Any ideas why he would continue this?  I have now not allowed him in the coop and during free range time which is pretty much all day.  I keep her in the run with her 3 best hen friends. I would like to breed the icelandics. So I would like to keep him.  I would just like to know why he would only be aggressive to this one hen.  He is a gentlemen to all the others.  Brings them treats, alerts to Predators, allows my kids to pet him, etc.  Would the original attack by the rock barred on her cause him to attack her?  Is it because she looks different from the rest?

That does not sound like a bird anyone would want to breed with, sorry to say. I’d seek out genetics without that counterproductive trait.

Welcome to Permies!

That is a troubling trait. I'm not sure if I would spend the time to emasculate my rooster by holding him around the hens if I caught him attacking the hen or cull him for his behavior. I'd let a few more people weight in before any decision was made regardless.

1). You could get rid of the rooster and get a more peaceable one.
... Or.
2). You could use a pair of scissors and cut off the sharp part of his beak, and use something heavier to shorten his spurs.

Then watch and wait a bit. If he stops his aggression, all good.
If not, go back to number one.

An aggressive animal, no matter what kind, is never a good thing to have on a farm.
(Unless, of course, you want an attack llama for protection in the apocalypse.)

we had 2 hens attack our rooster and duck.the duck remained permanently injured with a messed up leg and wing. the rooster we let him heal and go back in. he was attacked a 2 time. we took him out for 4 months, put him back and he was fine. He is still with our 18 hens. the rooster was a sweet little guy and he is only a year.

You get always that ONE Rooster that is over involved and might just to sort the pecking order.

I have now 200 Brahmas and 150 Plymouth rocks and some Roosters are like this. (Have been, now BBQ or still in the freezer)

It could be that your rooster had a low ranked (pecking order) favorite girl which gets attacked by the high ranked Leghorn girl (they can be a bit more aggressive)
The one he loves doesn't be neccessarily the Nr one in the Coop...

If he goes so hard on her then he isn't the right one to breed.
You need to chose always the most docile one.

I have a very lovely Brahma Rooster as long its about girls, but when a predator or snake comes, in he goes completely berserk.
That's what you want..

It could also be that there is not enough space for them and he wants reduce the amount of chicks.. But that's more unlikely.

Hi Cameron,
I will start by saying that I would probably agree with all the other people who have talked about maybe this is not the rooster to breed.

Having said that, I would like to say a few words in favor of the rooster. First, is that while its completely possible for a chicken to take it into their heads that they don't like another chicken and simply attack it... it is usually because there is something different about that chicken. It is also completely possible for the chickens to pick up on a disease, that people have not noticed, and try to protect their flock by getting rid of the sick bird.

I might also suggest trying to remove the rooster for a time, and then bringing him back. Giving the rooster a time out, might let him cool his jets and view that hen as part of the group.

Jim Fry wrote:2). You could use a pair of scissors and cut off the sharp part of his beak, and use something heavier to shorten his spurs.

I disagree with this. I don't think you should ever de-beak a bird. If things are so bad, that you feel it is necessary that the chicken lose his beak... then I think the chicken should be culled. Or for the commercial growers, the environment should changed.

Jim Fry wrote: An aggressive animal, no matter what kind, is never a good thing to have on a farm.

Again, I would have to disagree. I think it depends on how the animal is aggressive. You mention an attack llama as a joke, but you want LGD to be aggressive with predators and gentle with people. I would probably say that about most male animals. I want a rooster who is aggressive to the hawk who lands in the pen, but gentle with the hens and people. If an animal is aggressive/violent with people... I agree that should be a death warrant in most cases. But I disagree with the blanket statement that all aggression is bad at all times.

Just out of curiosity, tell me more about what you mean by "attacking." I know she ended up really wounded, but there's more than just one way for that to happen. Have you seen him actually fighting her? Did he try to breed her, she wouldn't stand for him, and so then he attacked her? Maybe (like a previous post said) she was picking fights with other hens, which made the rooster mad? Look for more than just the outward signs if you want to really understand what's going on.
I agree with Matt McSpadden about not de-beaking, and not culling straight away because of aggressive traits like that. De-beaking is unhealthy and could cause him to have a hard time eating or breeding any of the hens. I've only trimmed spurs once, and it was on an incredibly old rooster that was having a hard time walking around his five inch spurs. If she's getting head wounds, I seriously doubt that the spurs are causing the issue, so trimming them isn't going to do anything besides risk hurting the rooster,
One important thing I've learned from raising many MANY animals, is that you need to pay attention to their behavior on more than just a surface level. We had a Nubian goat in the pen with an LGD a couple weeks ago, and he was fine until he suddenly started acting crazy around her. Following her around licking her, jumping on her if she ran away, and refusing to listen when he was called off her. He got in trouble several times until I decided to look closer at the doe he was chasing, instead of trying to analyze the situation just based on his behavior. Turns out she had a puncture wound on her hip (no idea how she got it, and no, it wasn't from the LGD) that was badly infected. Chester, the LGD, had picked up on the infection and was trying to clean it out for her because he knew it was going to cause problems. When she ran away, he was trying to make her stay put because he knew how bad it was. We pulled her from the pen, cleaned the wound, and let it heal for a week before putting her back in... and he only sniffed at her once before walking away. I don't really think the hen has an issue the rooster is picking up on, but this gives an example of why it's important to look at more than just the apparent facts.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea that the rooster dislikes the hen, which is causing the attacking (it's always a possibility, but it wouldn't be my first guess). The more likely scenario, in my opinion, is that she's his favorite hen, and he's either being an overly aggressive breeder (my best guess); or, she doesn't like him, so won't let him breed her, which is making him mad. Roosters breed the hens by grabbing into their head feathers with their beak in order to hold on while they breed. That frequently causes hens to loose feathers and/or get beaten up. I have had hens get pretty ripped up (including having heads torn open so badly they needed stitches) because of breeding on multiple occasions. Roosters really do tend to pick a favorite hen, which they breed more often. She's different than the rest of the hens, which makes her stand out to the rooster. The fact that both roosters demonstrated the same behavior makes me think that she's the favorite. I would suggest getting more hens that look like her, if you want to push her out of the favorite zone.

She is not his favorite. His fav is a Penelope a grey Easter egger.  I have 11 hens and there is very little aggression towards each other the slight peck of hey I eat first during meals.  Pearl (victim) leghorn is a dominant bird and although not aggressive does seem to be fine with all the ladies.  I've resorted to keeping her in the coop with her bestie a RIR during the day.  The roo jumped in the run over an 6 foot door just to attack pearl a week ago, reopening the wound that had almost healed.  From what I saw, he ran up to her.  She laid on the ground and he straight up chopped her with his beak in the back of the head.  I luckily wasn't far and yelled after the first strike which caused him to look up and I managed to toss a snowball hitting him.  I ran in the coop managed to grab him and threw him in the kennel I have in the coop.  I was pissed and left him in there for 2 days.  After cleaning her wound she went with the rest of the hens and foraged. No fights, no picking on her or her wound.  Like I said the roo is good with everyone else.  He didn't even try mounting her.  None of the others have missing feathers because I've watched him and although young  he's quite gentle.