Mean Chickens!! - Introducing New Roosters to the Hens.

Yes, normal; not nice, but then chickens aren't always nice. Sometimes they resemble little velociraptors... If one bird is a problem, try housing her (him?) separately for a week or so, then reintroduce to the flock. If no other bird is injured, they may work it out over time. You might have to remove a real bully. Mary

Thanks so much! I don't notice it as much during the day. I'm still not sure if they're hens or roosters. They were purchased as pullets at 1 wk. I do think I might have a couple of roosters but haven't had any problems there (yet)!

I'm glad to know that other people have had issues adding new roosters. I replaced a young rooster (6 months) that was related to and hatched out with my hens and the new rooster was about a year older. The hens wouldn't let him mate. It took quite a few months just to get a few fertile eggs. Well, today I noticed he mated with two of the hens and they seemed to put up with him better. I might actually be able to raise some chicks finally! I managed to hatched out five cockerels and two pullets and was hoping to pick out a new rooster and add the pullets in but all but one pullet and cockerel died of coccidosis. Out of my four older hens (pullets really) one lays shell-less eggs and one lays extremely skinny, pointy eggs. I think they must have been severely inbreed (Blue Laced Red Wyandottes).

My second rooster problem was that my little Buff Orpington rooster mated constantly and was eagerly accepted but was also related and way too small for what a Buff Orpington should be. Fertility was good, but I wanted a bigger roo. So...I raised up a few unrelated cockerels along with some Cream Legbars. They were all about the same age and the Buff Orpingtons were HUGE. I finally got rid of all but one Buff roo and one CL roo and kept them in with some older Black Star hens for company (not much older but laying eggs). The CL roo started crowing when he was still tiny and started mating with the Black Stars at about 4 months. Meanwhile he was beating up on the Buff roo who was about twice the size! So I finally sold my older Buff roo and replaced him with the young Buff and he was terrified of the Buff hens. They really beat him up. I thought he was holding his own until we got a surprise cold snap and I went out to find he had slept outside the coop as the hens hadn't let him in the coop. I actually thought he might have coccidosis because he acted very sick. I put him in a separate run and he barely ate or drank. I treated him for coccidosis with Corid but he still seems...well, halfway between sick and depressed. I did see him try and mate once (but I haven't seen him crow yet). Hopefully he'll start feeling better and the hens might accept him better. I wonder if part of the problem might be my Black Australorp rooster in the next pen. He's quite a specimen and perhaps the hens fancy him. I put my Black Stars in with the Buffs back when I had the older Buff roo and they were trying desperately to get in with the Black Australorp roo. They had no problem mating with the Cream Legbar rooster but they didn't seem to much care for the older Buff roo (or the young one for that matter).

Anyhow, it's a lot more drama than I expected when I first got into chickens...