Surprise roosters!

Bobbi-J offered some really good advice! My only advice to add would be to go ahead an put the young roosters (or the one you want to keep - I'd get rid of the other one) in with the older hens. Nature has a way of teaching young cockerels manners and older hens are just the ones to do it! The cockerel will probably lose a few feathers and take a few beatings, but he'll learn that not all the ladies are easy and he'll have to work to gain their respect. A difference in age of even a few months will help with this if the hens are older. The pullets are not sexually mature yet, and so they are not the least bit interested in what your teenage roosters are trying to offer! When they begin doing the egg squat, they'll be a bit more interested.

I really appreciate all of your advice everyone! You have all been a huge help! Mightymax, how does that work with four roosters and only three hens?? So sorry to hear about your flock having mereks, that's one of my worst fears! Peeps61, I hope your right about the girls teaching him manners. I know the current "queen" of the older girls is pretty strong in her role and I can definitely see her teaching him a lesson or two! Would the roosters actually even be ready to mate with the older hens? They are about four months old at this point. Thank you all again!

@AprilLouise . Every roo is different, but I can tell you that by 4 months of age, mine were like pure testosterone covered with feathers! Now, whether your older ladies will put up with that type of behavior or not is another matter !!! As for how my out of whack roo to hen ratio works...Well, it's been working out surprising well !!! I'm sure it helps that all my chicks are silkies and pretty laid back to begin with. And I free-range them during the day, so if conflict does happens (and occasionally it does), there's plenty of room and places for them to hide. IMO, the fact that I have a closed flock has helped cut down on the in-fighting. These same 7 chickens have been together for over a year now, and with no new ones being added, there's no need for them to reorganize their well established infrastructure. Since their pecking order remains constant, they have fewer squabbles than most. At first I thought, with all those roosters the hens will surely suffer from over-mating. But here again, they proved me wrong! Three of the roos have 'girlfriends'. The General has Pear-Pear, Kramer's with Olive and Raven is engaged to Riley (she/they just hatched out 2 beautiful little silkies a week ago). My 4th roo, Aloe (named not for the plant but for the autoimmune disease, alopecia, because after his first molt, his fluffy wing feathers never grew back in). Anyway, he's the youngest, scrawniest, most high strung and totally neurotic roo I have and he didn't stand a chance with the ladies So instead he took a liking to my oldest hen who was fast approaching the end of her battle with Marek's disease. They became inseparable. Wherever one went, the other was soon to follow. They ate together, snuggled together, played together and caught bugs together. So you can imagine that when it came time to put Snowy down, I felt doubly depressed. For not only was I mourning Snowy's passing, but I was also heartbroken over knowing that Aloe would just be devastated. But I digress...back to point...having 4 roosters and 3 hens all together, forever, without the option of adding or removing any them, could have been a recipe for disaster !!! But it hasn't been! Despite the curve balls I've been thrown occasionally, I must say that I find keeping chickens to be enjoyable and quite entertaining !!! I hope this sort of answers your question about how it works when you have more roos than hens. Please keep in mind that there's no single 'right' way to raise chickens and that what works for one, may not work for another. I wish you loads of fun with your chickens! It's always an adventure !!!

It's doubtful that the hens higher up in the pecking order will allow him to mate them. He'll have to earn their respect first, THEN he will get to mate them. The lower order hens may allow him to mount them, but probably not right away. He'll have to force the issue to begin with, and if he is significantly smaller than they are, he will probably not be too successful. As he grows, tries, fails, learns and tries again, he'll eventually reach a point where he is running the flock. I watched my roo grow from a chick to a full grown flock master and he took his lumps and bumps (and a few pecks and lost feathers) along the way. He eventually was the undisputed ruler of the harem, but believe me, he had to EARN it! Those big girls taught him how they wanted to be wooed and taken care of before he was too big to force the issue from any of them.