Some breeds mature faster than others, and some lines within a breed mature faster than others. I have one early bloomer this year that surprised me when I heard crowing coming from that pen since I had young males there, but generally mine will start more like 3 months. 6 weeks is ridiculously early IMO. It is best to separate sexes as soon as possible, but definitely by the time the males start pestering the pullets. Preferably out of sight of the pullets. Mine are also in a large group, they are next to a pen of pullets. Usually there will be a couple of dominant cockerels and the less dominant ones will not crow unless or until the dominant ones are gone, lest they be a target! I had one particular cockerel who was a complete bully and he would have been culled except he looks too promising. He would run over and pull feathers and pick on another bird that was on the other side of the pen minding his own business. I took him out and he is living by himself now and there is peace in that pen now, for a while at least, until another male takes up the role of dominant.I am growing out a batch of BCM's that are 8 1/2 weeks old. Am I the only one that finds the males of this breed start crowing around 6 weeks and start becoming obnoxious by 9? We've had a few other breeds of males this year and their crowing didn't start until around 13-14 weeks. Maybe it's because my Marans tend to be in a group with lots of other cockerels?
Regardless, I've culled down to 4 of the best cockerels and they're already trying to jump on the pullets and are crowing obnoxiously!
Dealing with young male hormones is definitely one of the challenges of breeding quality chickens since one needs to grow out a lot of them to find a few good ones. A lot of space and separate pens is helpful.
