How many roo's per hens??

[stephensc7146]

I decided on a few more chickens to buy from a hatchery. My problem, is I want to have a rooster for each breed.. (except for the sex links that I already have)

I plan on having:

6 red sex links
4 Barred Rocks (1 Roo and 3 Hens)
3 Black Sumatras (1 Roo and 2 Hens)
4 Silver Laced Wyandottes (1 Roo and 3 Hens)
2 bantams (no idea what sex they are)

Is this too many Roos all in one coop?? I will have a pen built for them outside their coop with 100 ft fencing something like 42 long, 15 wide, they will not be free range.. I don't want them to kill each other.. Would this work out okay??

 

[ButchGood]

I'm no expert, but what Ive heard is 8 to 10 hens per rooster. I'm going with 1 for a dozen hens. Too many roos can cause problems. One option that I would consider if I was attempting to breed multiple breeds would be bachelor pens.

 

[cashdl]

I raise Large Fowl Araucana and have found that the perfect number of hens per roo for me is 4 or 5 hens per roo. You can definately get away with more hens but for me I don't want my roos running ragged wooing all the girls. And they will try.

I have 1 pen that has 6 hens in there. The roo was beautiful when he had two hens, then I went to 4 and still beautiful. I put 6 in there and I swear he is frazzled. He is constantly loosing feathers, and looks ragged. Poor boy. I am going to take two girls out and give him a bit of a break.

Lanae

 

[Erinmir]

I'm sort of curious about why you want to keep 1 rooster of each breed. If you are hoping to raise chicks that are of a specific breed, keeping all those breeds and roos together won't work out too well. Only reason being, that while you will have a roo of each breed, that doesn't necessarily mean that each roo will favor only the girls that are of his same breed. You'll likely end up with barnyard crosses of all sorts if you are keeping them all together in one coop/run.

From experience in breeding and raising other kinds of animals though, if you are going to have more than one male, the best option may be 3. In general, if there are two males of a specific kind of animal in close quarters and they have to fight for territory, one will be the victor and the other will be constantly picked on and harassed. If there are three males, the aggression is more evenly distributed. However, from what I understand about roosters, this may not even apply at all. I'd say it depends on the temperament of the roosters in question.

Good luck whatever you decide!

 

[stephensc7146]

I just think roosters are very eye pleasing birds. If I go with hatching eggs later on, I will probably buy eggs from a hatchery to avoid odd mixed breeds.. If its better for the health of all my birds, I will rule out adding more roosters. I was looking on a hatchery site and I found black sumatras. I found them nearly breathtaking! I considered cutting out the silver laced wyandotte so i could order 2 black sumatra hens and a roo. I just needed good advice on if it will be safe to add him to my mix. Safety of my girls is much more important than an eye pleasing bird, but I would still love to have one.

 

[stephensc7146]

I raise Large Fowl Araucana and have found that the perfect number of hens per roo for me is 4 or 5 hens per roo. You can definately get away with more hens but for me I don't want my roos running ragged wooing all the girls. And they will try.

I have 1 pen that has 6 hens in there. The roo was beautiful when he had two hens, then I went to 4 and still beautiful. I put 6 in there and I swear he is frazzled. He is constantly loosing feathers, and looks ragged. Poor boy. I am going to take two girls out and give him a bit of a break.

Lanae

From what you said here, It sounds like a may possibly need more than one rooster? Seems like 14 hens is too many for just one fella?

 

[hollychicken]

Next year I `m getting 1 roo and I will have a mix of RIR and BR and the total would be 5 will I need a roo for each breed?