Having a rooster problem

[BettyR]

Does anyone have any experience with Barred Rock roosters. My old roos....I had a Black Australorp and a New Hampshire Red. Both were exceptional roosters but they got old and died. I got a batch of Barred Rock pullets in the fall so I'd have a new batch of hens ready to start laying in the spring. I ordered 2 Barred Rock roos with the pullets and I ended up with about 6 roos. I think the hatchery dumped a handful of roos on me just to get rid of them because the crazy things are defective. I think I'm going to kill all of these Barred Rock roos and order some Black Australorp and some New Hampshire Red pullets for the spring and get a couple of roos and just start over.

These stupid Barred Rock roos can't seem to figure out how to mate without hurting the hens. The hens start screaming and they gang up on her. I'm sick of them abusing my hens. We've already eaten one of them. I was working in the yard and a group of the roosters had ganged up on a hen. She was screaming and I threw a rake at the group just to break them up and the rake accidentally hit one of the roos just right and broke it's neck. We had chicken and dumplings. I'm beginning to think that the only thing these roos are good for is the stew pot.

 

[bobbi-j]

Sounds like you have too many roosters in with your hens... I'd separate them all but one and see how it goes. The only BR rooster Inhad was pretty human aggressive.

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Yikes - a gang of adolescent rooster with raging hormones. No doubt there are too many of them for the flock. Fortunately you are comfortable with the stew pot solution. It is hard to say if you just had one Barred Rock rooster if it would be okay.

 

[BettyR]

Yeah, there are definitely too many roos, about 6 for a flock of somewhere around 40 hens. I'm going to cull them back to 2 and see how that goes but I'm very disillusioned with these roos and think I'll end up replacing them. I may give separating them out a try, in any case sitting in a cage for a week or two would tenderize them up nicely....(insert evil laugh here)

So far none have even thought about being aggressive but then if they were they'd probably die on the spot. I'm pretty pi$$ed off at the lot of them and they wouldn't get any second chances.