Keeping more than one Rooster

[shellyjimrye]

Hi there...
what is the general concensus about keeping more than one rooster in with a flock. Currently we have 47 five week old chicks. Obviously out of that number there will be numerous roosters as we got them unsexed as day olds. We have an assortment of breeds from traditional heritage birds to bantams. We would like to maybe keep a few of the more dramatic or attractive roosters. What is your experience with keeping more than one rooster in with pullets? Will they get too agressive when they get to breeding age? All thoughts welcome!

 

[gryeyes]

I always keep at least two roosters; right now I have three. I have had as many as 12...... And I've got around fifty hens. In my not-so-humble opinion, you should always keep two roosters (unless you only have six or seven hens or less). This allows for having a "spare" in case something happens to one of them, but also they can work as a team, with one dominant and one as his second lieutenant, so to speak. Especially if you allow your flock to range freely. None of my roosters fight each other. There is a pecking order, in which the #3 roo respects #2 and #1, #2 respects #1, and #1 has "king's rights" to all the hens. He allows the other two to mount certain hens, but not his favorites. In the past three years, there have only been two "bad" roosters (which I culled). They were just mean, very rough on the hens and fought the other roosters. This was also when I had too many roosters at one time. So, my answer is: sure, keep more than one rooster. Just be sure they are good ones! You want them to find treats for the hens, not be rough on them, be good flock protectors, settle hen squabbles, and be respectful of human beings..

 

[Ridgerunner]

They are living animals, each with their own individual personality. They don’t come with guarantees. We each have our own unique situation and circumstances. Our management techniques, space, facilities, goals, climate, and neighbors are all different. What works for one person does not necessarily work for others. So much for the legalistic mumbo jumbo fine print.

I always recommend keeping as few roosters as you can and still maintain your goals. Not because you are guaranteed problems with several roosters, but because the chances of having problems go up the more you have. I also don’t believe in magic numbers when it comes to chickens. The magic numbers you often get on this forum come from a specific source, commercial operations that produce hatching eggs and are basically worried about fertility in those specific housing circumstances. Most of us don’t keep our chickens in those circumstances so those magic numbers don’t really apply. That 10 hens to 1 rooster is not a bad ratio to go with. It makes a nice flock. But in a small flock situation, one rooster can usually keep a lot more hens fertile and more roosters than the 10 to 1 does not guarantee problems, either in overmating the hens or in fighting. Still I recommend as few roosters as you can and still meet your goals.

People have been keeping flocks with multiple roosters for thousands of years, usually without big problems. Chickens, hens and roosters, set up a dominance hierarchy, usually called the pecking order. Setting up that pecking order can sometimes be fairly violent or it can go so smoothly you hardly notice. The roosters will have a separate activity. They have to determine who will be the ultimate flock master, the dominant rooster. Usually you will see some confrontation and conflict but seldom is any real damage done. There can be fights to the death however. There are no guarantees.

What usually happens in these conflicts, one chicken decides it is not winning and runs away. There may be some chasing involved by the winner to drive the point home and sometimes there is a rematch, but as long as one runs away, it generally ends peacefully. It is extremely important that they have room to run away and get away, especially if there is chasing involved. To me, having plenty of space so they can run away is the most important criteria.

They usually start sorting the pecking order and dominance issues in the brooder, but as they go through adolescence and mature at different rates, the pecking order can go through a shake-up. You are likely to see fights then, especially between the cockerels.

When they go through adolescence they can have a rough time. Both the cockerels and the pullets have hormones raging and they just don’t know how to act. The cockerels usually mature a bit earlier than the pullets. This is when a lot of young cockerels literally lose their heads. Their hormones are driving the cockerels and the pullets won’t cooperate so the cockerels get forceful. Given time they will both normally eventually mature out of this but it can be fairly violent for a while.

Something you might see, especially during adolescence, is that the pullets or hens lose a lot of feathers, especially on their backs. This can become dangerous because the bare skin can get cut while they are mating. This can come from excessive mating. Those hormones are really driving those adolescent cockerels, but there could be a couple of other things at work. One is that the boys just don’t have a good technique, and to make it worse, the pullets may not do their part exactly right either. Many people think the cockerels are using their spurs to gouge out the feathers and cut the pullets, but these cockerels usually don’t have much in the way of spurs. They do have sharp toenails though and they are trying to hold on and balance on top of a pullet that may not be cooperating really well. If you see this happening you might consider giving them a pedicure. I’ve been known to take a Dremel tool and take the sharp tip off their claws. As long as you don’t go too deep, it’s just like trimming your toenails. But if you go to deep, you can get into the quick.

Another thing that often happens is that it is just one or two hens that are having the bareback problem. The consensus on this forum is that the pullet is being overmated. The rooster has a favorite and is just wearing her out. There actually could be something to this and I have seen pullets and hens that seem anxious to squat for the rooster. But something else that might be going on is that some hens have brittle feathers. They just break up and fall apart. It still comes from mating, but it is not because of bad technique by the rooster or overmating. That hen has a flaw that puts herself at risk.

That bareback problem is not always simple when it shows up. There are several different things that could be causing it.

What normally happens when you have multiple roosters in a flock is that they reach an accommodation on how to cooperate in taking care of the flock. Sometimes they split the flock up into separate harems. I’ve had two roosters that hung out together much more than with the hens. The eggs were still fertile and they knew which one was dominant, but they just hung out together. I’ve had other combinations and permutations happen. They are living animals. You really can’t predict with any certainty what they will wind up doing.

This is totally my opinion based on my observations. Others will have totally different opinions on this stuff. As I said, different things work for different ones of us. Hopefully you can get something useful out of all this.

Good luck!

 

[shellyjimrye]

Thank you both for your excellent responses. I know that from years of raising chickens growing up we would usually have more than one rooster. I also remember at times they would fight. Years have passed since I was able to move out to a farm and establish my own flock and I want to try and keep the most healthy and vibrant flock that I possibly can. Its funny when you say how different people have different ideas. I distinctly remember one grandmother having very specific ideas on how to raise hens and then the other grandma having a totally opposing idea! Both had beautiful flocks! I try and not overthink anything with my chickens. I dont stress and know that what worked for someone else, might not work for me. Heck, what worked last week for me might not work this week!!! hehehe... Thanks again for the awesome well thought out responses. They are greatly appreciated!

 

[Phoenixxx]

Yup, what Ridgerunner said. I thought I was in for a helluva mess bringing in two young roos IN ADDITION TO the 4 young roos I already had... so far, gravy! And I only have 15 hens.

 

[MzPlacedHippie]

My two have a system worked out also. Specs gets no time with Teriyaki's favorite hens. But I've seen them stand together in the face of an enemy (a snake). One roo belongs to my oldest son and one to my youngest, (23 & 19, still both in MY nest) so I really couldn't bring myself to part with them. I'm glad I didn't now.

Sulking when the girls were in lock up during nest box training.

 

[AxisOfBeagles]

Just my experience - your mileage may vary - but i've had reasonable happiness for both flock and humans with two roosters attending to a flock of 14 hens. It may be luck, but it's my opinion that your choices on which roos to keep will help determine the success. In our current flock, we recently had a handful of young cockerels from which to choose. We waited until one was the clear choice (cuckoo marans) - he was bigger than the others, and what I can only describe as calmly authoritative. We then selected a second for his looks (gorgeous blue wheaten Amer) and apparent acceptance of being #2.

Both are easy to live with, and don't fight.

 

[Highcotton]

Quote:
I have two Black Australorps that grew up together. They seem to be happy to share. One will see one mounting a hen and run over and wait his turn. I also have a Black Rosecomb Bantam and no bantam hens. He is usually hanging around the periphery with the 3 Mallard hens. All 3 roosters peacefully coexist and there seems to be something of a pecking order and I haven't seen a real fight.

 

[LTygress]

Roosters can and will often get along with each other. That's rarely the issue. The issue is how torn-up your hens are going to be. Roosters want to mate quite often, and several roosters on the same hen will cause her to start going bald, develop sores from all of the grabbing, etc.

I had three roosters last year with only about 5 hens after the fox attacked. The rooster at the bottom of the pecking order turned aggressive towards PEOPLE, because he didn't really have hens to mate with. So he wanted to mount just about anything he could, and that meant grabbing pretty tight to do so - and kids don't understand the difference between wanting to mate, and wanting to fight. Of course we humans don't have anything but skin for him to grab, and it would hurt, so we often pushed him away pretty rough when he bit. That made him more aggressive, until he was biting, kicking, and fighting.

I had a frizzle roo start to do the same thing recently when we introduced him to our existing flock. Another bantam roo had mating rights on the hens, and at first they would battle it out a bit (more or less just chasing) for mating rights. But the frizzle roo finally realized he had nothing, and started to become more aggressive towards humans. Once we split them up for a while and gave each of them their OWN hens to mate with, the frizzle calmed down quickly, AND stopped being chased by the other roo. They no longer fought over the hens, because they knew who their hens were. But the frizzle stopped going for humans too, because he was getting what he wanted from the hens!

So it's easy to keep more than one rooster. And the more hens you have, the more roosters you can keep. Just try to find a happy RATIO with more hens than roosters (some say 4 hens per roo, others say 1 to 1 is fine, it depends on the individuals) for the best flock.


By the way, I currently have a total of 8 roosters with 15 grown hens, and 2 pullets. And they get along just fine so far (although two roosters are CLEARLY roosters, they are five months old and have not yet starting crowing - both are slow-developing breeds and just may not seem to pose a threat to the others yet).

 

[hester]

I've found this a really positive thread, thank you. I think I was panicking a bit because my cockerels are all reaching adolescence at the same time, but the descriptions here of the different ways they sort it out were really helpful. Happily, we have lots of space, so I think we will keep going - perhaps letting the cockerels free-range a bit more than the hens when we aren't around to keep an eye on them all!