Four roosters with three hens? Can it work!

[Sunny Chicks]

Hello all, I have seven OEBs, four roosters and three hens. They've all been raised together, and are not aggressive towards each other. Would they be able to stay in the same flock, or would the roosters be aggressive toward each other and fight over the hens and over breed with the hens? Please help! I don't want to have to get rid of any

 

[chicklover 1998]

they can and will over breed the female you only need one male to 10 females

 

[chicklover 1998]

you could make a roo bachelor pad

 

[chicklover 1998]

they can and will over breed the female you only need one male to 10 females

that 10 isn't a min though

 

[Sunny Chicks]

they can and will over breed the female you only need one male to 10 females

What should I do? A friend of mine is ordering chicks but we don't have the room to order 10 pullets per one rooster. Let alone the money!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m not one to believe in magic numbers for chickens. There are lots of people that don’t come close to the 10 to 1 ratio and do fine, but your ratio is way out of bounds even for me. If roosters are going to fight, it doesn’t matter if it’s over one hen or thirty. The ratio doesn’t have anything to do with fighting.

There are people that have over 20 hens with one rooster and still have some hens over-mated or barebacked. Breeders often keep one rooster with one or two hens the entire breeding season and do not have over-mating or barebacked problems. One of the breeder’s keys though is that they use adult hens and roosters, not adolescent pullets and cockerels. It sounds like yours are still pretty young. Things might get pretty exciting son down there soon.

I always suggest you keep as few roosters as you can and still meet your goals. That’s not because you are guaranteed problems with more roosters, just that it is more likely. With your 4 to 3, I’d say it is as close to definite as you can get when dealing with living animals. You have said you don’t want to get rid of any so what can you do?

The only realistic answer I can come up with is build a bachelor pad. House three or maybe all four males in there with no females to fight over. They usually get along if they don’t have any females to fight over.

You can try to leave things as they are and see how it goes, but I’d strongly suggest building a separate accommodation for them so you can react quickly if you need to.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Then you'll either have to separate or rehome them. Trust me, when those boys hormones start kicking in and they start pushing themselves on those poor pullets, you'll be more then ready to have them gone. I know its hard to let them go (I love my roos) but your girls are going to suffer if you keep them all together.

Good luck.

 

[realsis]

I agree. you don't want your hens all bare backed and bread to death. Another really ugly fact that can happen when the rooster sexual ly matures is they don't just fight the other rooster over the girls, they intend to KILL the other roosters to prove most dominant! and that is a VERY ugly thing to deal with! even the sweetest rooster to you, might not be so sweet to the other males .Is that breed considered docile? if not, I would be very careful. This can lead to serious challenges.You will want to avoid that if possible. at sexual maturity they likely will spar for dominance no matter how they get along now, at sexual maturity they will change. you can try to keep them from over mating your hens by keeping them separately but if they start to hurt each other, different arrangements might need to be made.

 

[Sunny Chicks]

So it sounds like I'll keep one rooster, he's really friendly and sweet, and give the other roos roa friend of mind who is ordering 15+ chicks soon.

 

[Folly's place]

How old are these boys? "Really friendly and sweet" can become "Wants to hurt me!" if you are misinterpreting the behaviors your are seeing in younger cockrels. I want my cockrels to respect my space at all times instead. Mary