Which rooster should I keep?

I have five roosters, 3 or 4 of them need to go since I ony have 10 hens. I do have one rooster that seems to be in charge of the flock, do I need to keep him or will any of the five learn to take charge and become the leader?

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Any of them will what breeds are they and what types of hens do you have?

Purebred breeds seem to sell easier then mutts...

so if you have a rooster that matches some of your hens keep him if they all have good temperaments.

Keep your best. I would keep two as you might want a backup.

One of the two will take over lead duties.

What is the dominant rooster's behavior like? Is it acceptable? When the dominant rooster is removed from a flock, one of the other roosters will take over that position. His personality can change dramatically when that happens and he no longer has the dominant rooster to keep him in line. He may turn out to have a great personality or he may not. You really don't know. If the dominant rooster meets your behavior requirements, that is a strong vote to keep him. How a rooster will behave when he becomes dominant is real hard to judge until he becomes dominant.

Does he meet your goals for a rooster? One of my goals is to raise chickens for meat, so size is one of my criteria. If you are not raising them for meat, size would not be one of your criteria. Maybe color or pattern is important to you?

If any rooster attacks a human, he needs to go, dominant or not. No questions asked.

When you remove some of the roosters, you will disturb the pecking order. You can expect some rowdy behavior while they sort that out. That will probably involve some fighting, but since it is pecking order stuff, it may be mostly pecking and intimidation. If you remove the dominant rooster, it becomes a flock dominance issue. The remaining roosters (if you keep more than one) will probably fight to determine who is the dominant one. They may very well work out a partnership and work very well together to protect the flock and get along great or they may fight to the death. Sounds like yours were raised together and get along now, so the odds are they will work out a partnership, but you never know. When I've done that before, it has actually been fairly peacefullly done, so disaster or all out war is not inevitable, just possible. When you do decide which roosters to take out, I suggest taking all of them out at once so you only go through this "danger period" once. I'll repeat. I've done this before (take out the dominant one and leave other roosters behind) and it was not all that bad, but there is a risk.

Pick the gentleman, the one that reminds you of a good man. LOL He should feed his girls, not get carried away with fighting, keep a lookout for hawks, choose nesting sites (that the hens will likely ignore...) and he should "wing dance" more than grab a hen by the neck feathers and drag her around while she protests. The hens should respect him, if they don't, they don't like him. Find who they like, and who you can tolerate. Should be the guy who is constantly with the majority of the hens. Any roo left out as a straggler can go.

Alright, thanks for the info. The dominant one does indeed seem to be a good keeper of the hens, he seems to break up any conflicts and gets them all in the coop at night.. The other one I want to consider keeping I believe is the lowest of the five on the rooster ranks. I do have a couple barred rocks that I hope can sell quickly due to their nice looks and being a good breed.

Thanks Again!

I had several that I was evaluating last summer.

I had the old stand by rooster - he was going to stay no matter what - but I wanted a pure breed one too.

I had 3 black silkie roos & 2 aracauna's.

Two of the three silkie roos flat out attacked me! Ha - that was easy - they lived about 5 minutes after that.

That left 2 aracauna's & 1 silkie roo.

One of the aracauna's decided he wanted to be my boss too - he we eliminated from the running.

So I was down to two - the aracauna & the silkie.

Now during this time I was having some issues with my polish hens being scalped by the older hens & so I had them seperated into the garden while the rest of the flock got to free range.

The aracauna rooster found them there & set up house all by himself. He jumped the fence & moved right into the coop I had in there.

The silkie on the other had was keeping a low profile with the rest of the flock. Not crowing, or causing any issues.

Well - long story short - the aracauna had the loudest dang crow I'd ever heard & the garden is by the bedroom - so he had to go.

My silkie got along great with the rest & we named him wee-man.

Process of elimination. Works every time.

I know this is an old thread, but I have two potential roosters in my small flock of supposedly 8 sexed chicks. So much for money well spent. Anyhow, are there other tips on training a rooster early on, or which to keep?

If either shows any aggression towards you, it's easy. Otherwise, watch them as they grow. Some cockrels get nasty early, and some turn into jerks a bit later. Any health issues should be considered; you want a cockrel who hasn't had any problems. Then size and breed type; who's the best looking? If everyone is getting along, give it time and decide a bit later. Mary