What is a good ratio of hens to rooster?

wornoutmomto3

Crowing
9 Years
Jan 6, 2014
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A quick background:
I currently have 6 roosters (2 mature and 4 juvenile) and 30 hens/pullets. They openly free-range on five acres, although, they usually stay on the back two acres. (Personal preference I guess.) I have recently set up a large breeding pen with 1 rooster and 9 hens. The hens consist of three that are actively laying, four about to come into their first laying season, and one hen with her six chicks. (Mama hen is one of the older hens, and has been apart of the active layers for over a year. (Relations are good/friendly, so chicks are safe.))

Now for the question:
This breeding group is an experiment group before working on a slightly larger scale. (Trying to start small.) My question is how many hens per rooster is a good match to ensure all the hens get mated and lay fertile eggs? Is nine hens to one rooster to many? (Technically 8:1 since one hen has chicks.)
 
The heaviest breeds of roosters can only breed around 3-6 hens, but most roos can breed 8-12 hens.

Best of luck with your new project!
thumbsup.gif
 
Thanks!

The rooster is a Large Fowl type but isn't super huge. He looks to be a cross between OEG and Speckled Sussex. He has the leanness of the game bird with the markings of a Sussex. I want to see if his markings will breed true when crossed with a variety of hens. (The rooster I had last year was like that. Every chick was a copy of himself, even the bantam cross just produced a mini version. Gave him to my pastor because I was taking my flock in a different direction and his genes were just a touch too strong.)
 
The usual 10:1 often cited is from commercial breeding facilities.
Many pure bred breeders use pairs, trios, quads, etc.

It will depend on your particular cock how many hens he can fertilize......8:1 sounds like a good place to start.
I wonder tho how far out your pullets are from sexual maturity/point of lay?
Note that pullet eggs can be risky for incubation, many will warn you off that one, but I had a friend's broody hatch some pullets eggs and tho the chicks were tiny they grew up just fine to regular sizes pullets.
...and how old are the chicks, meaning when will mama wean them and be ready to be back in business?

Hopefully, the cock is mellow and will be happy with just 3 for the time being.
If they all settle into a nice harmony living together, eventually you'll have a nice breeding group.
Will the chicks stay in that pen?
 
The pullet girls are between 4.5-5 months they just haven't started laying yet, although they allow the rooster to mate. I won't be incubating their eggs right away. I just don't want them getting to comfortable with the other roosters. The chicks are about 2.5 weeks and the rooster lets them get very close even while eating. (I wouldn't let them be in the same coop if I didn't feel that it was safe.)

I did notice something I that seems unusual though, that may have me moving mama and chicks out for a while. I went to check for eggs just after noon and there weren't any. Instead I notice yellow staining on the inside of one of the nest boxes. (I have three nesting areas set up.) I placed a ceramic egg in the stained box and Mama immediately jumped into the nest and started scratching it about.

Would a mama hen crack and eat another hen's eggs when she has chicks to raise?
 
The pullet girls are between 4.5-5 months they just haven't started laying yet, although they allow the rooster to mate. I won't be incubating their eggs right away. I just don't want them getting to comfortable with the other roosters. The chicks are about 2.5 weeks and the rooster lets them get very close even while eating. (I wouldn't let them be in the same coop if I didn't feel that it was safe.)

I did notice something I that seems unusual though, that may have me moving mama and chicks out for a while. I went to check for eggs just after noon and there weren't any. Instead I notice yellow staining on the inside of one of the nest boxes. (I have three nesting areas set up.) I placed a ceramic egg in the stained box and Mama immediately jumped into the nest and started scratching it about.

Would a mama hen crack and eat another hen's eggs when she has chicks to raise?
She might...the fake egg bait that she went after is a pretty good indicator that she's an egg eater, maybe segregate her and the chicks for a few days and see what you get.
Maybe because she needs more protein?
 
Commercial operations that breed chickens for hatching eggs have discovered that in the pen breeding method where you might have 20 roosters in one pen with 200 hens that a ratio of ten hens for one rooster will pretty much ensure fertility. That’s for full sized breeds. With bantams the ratio is closer to 12 or 15 to one. You’re not in a pen breeding system. How many hens a rooster can keep fertile depends a lot on the individual rooster. A young active rooster may be able to keep 20 to 25 hens fertile. An older less active rooster may do well to keep a small handful of hens fertile. Somewhere around 10 to 1 makes a nice flock but it really depends on the individual chickens. The hens have a part to play in this too.

When a rooster breeds a hen the sperm is stored in a special container near where the egg starts its internal journey through her egg making factory. The sperm can normally stay viable for two weeks, sometimes even three. A rooster has to successfully mate with an individual hen once every two weeks to keep her fertile. He does not have to mate with her every day.

I’ve never had a rooster threaten a young chick. If they are introduced to him when they are very young he assumes they are his even if they are a different color. I’ve had some roosters help a broody take care of her chicks and protect them from other flock members. Not all roosters do this but some do.

The speckling like a Speckled Sussex is controlled by a recessive gene. Since the rooster shows speckling he has two copies of that recessive gene at that point on his DNA. All his offspring will get a copy. But unless the chick also gets a copy from its mother you won’t see any speckling in that generation. But if you breed that rooster to his daughters you will probably see some speckling the next generation.

Some white and most black and black barred roosters throw chicks that look a lot like themselves even with some really different hens. Those can be very strong genetics. But if you breed crosses you can get some really different looking chicks. It’s always fun to breed crosses because you just don’t know what you will get.

Any chicken can be an egg eater. Her being broody should not have anything to do with it. Most chickens will eat an egg that is opened for them. That’s not an egg eater. An egg eater is one that will open an egg to eat it.

Some people will tell you various ways to cure an egg eater. I don’t know if any of those ways actually work or how often they work. The only way I know to solve that problem is to build rollaway nests so they cannot get to the eggs to eat them or to remove the chicken from the flock. You might try giving her a real egg and see if she opens it. Then you will know for sure.
 
The problem may also be related to a chicken who consistently lays a weak shelled egg. This may or may not be fixed by adding even more calcium to their diet. (layer pellets along with free choice oyster shell or recycled egg shell) I have one hen who should have been culled b/c she often laid eggs w/o or w/very weak shells, which then messed up the nest and any other eggs in the nest. I think the girls recognized the pattern, and would wait around for "that special egg". For some reason, she seems to have stopped laying those "special eggs". The only reason that she didn't get the axe was b/c she was a carbon copy of her 2 sisters who laid good eggs. And, b/c of my negligence in culling her, I may be faced with an other generation of her daughters who lay "those special eggs". Time will tell.
 
Commercial operations that breed chickens for hatching eggs have discovered that in the pen breeding method where you might have 20 roosters in one pen with 200 hens that a ratio of ten hens for one rooster will pretty much ensure fertility. That’s for full sized breeds. With bantams the ratio is closer to 12 or 15 to one. You’re not in a pen breeding system. How many hens a rooster can keep fertile depends a lot on the individual rooster. A young active rooster may be able to keep 20 to 25 hens fertile. An older less active rooster may do well to keep a small handful of hens fertile. Somewhere around 10 to 1 makes a nice flock but it really depends on the individual chickens. The hens have a part to play in this too.

When a rooster breeds a hen the sperm is stored in a special container near where the egg starts its internal journey through her egg making factory. The sperm can normally stay viable for two weeks, sometimes even three. A rooster has to successfully mate with an individual hen once every two weeks to keep her fertile. He does not have to mate with her every day.

I’ve never had a rooster threaten a young chick. If they are introduced to him when they are very young he assumes they are his even if they are a different color. I’ve had some roosters help a broody take care of her chicks and protect them from other flock members. Not all roosters do this but some do.

The speckling like a Speckled Sussex is controlled by a recessive gene. Since the rooster shows speckling he has two copies of that recessive gene at that point on his DNA. All his offspring will get a copy. But unless the chick also gets a copy from its mother you won’t see any speckling in that generation. But if you breed that rooster to his daughters you will probably see some speckling the next generation.

Some white and most black and black barred roosters throw chicks that look a lot like themselves even with some really different hens. Those can be very strong genetics. But if you breed crosses you can get some really different looking chicks. It’s always fun to breed crosses because you just don’t know what you will get.

Any chicken can be an egg eater. Her being broody should not have anything to do with it. Most chickens will eat an egg that is opened for them. That’s not an egg eater. An egg eater is one that will open an egg to eat it.

Some people will tell you various ways to cure an egg eater. I don’t know if any of those ways actually work or how often they work. The only way I know to solve that problem is to build rollaway nests so they cannot get to the eggs to eat them or to remove the chicken from the flock. You might try giving her a real egg and see if she opens it. Then you will know for sure.

Mama hen and chicks spent the day in a separate pen, and I did get a thin shelled egg. I added a dish of free choice oyster shell. Hopefully that will help.

I will keep those genetic factors in mind when I start the incubating/hatching phase of this experiment. Thank you for the very helpful information.
 

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