Keeping Roosters: I'd like advice on keepingRoosters without fighting or burdening hens.

[GrammiChelle]

I am a relative newbie to chicken keeping. I have a flock of 15 month old birds. My first flock. They are 6 Rhode Island Red hens and a Blue Langshan rooster. I have them in my big coop and they free range in my totally fenced in yard most of the afternoon.
He is a good rooster, takes good care of his girls and is pretty gentle with them. Two are presently wearing saddles right now from over attention. I think he's very gentle, but he is twice their size.

I also have new chicks, one month old right now. I ran the risk of getting roosters, knowing I might have to re home some of them. I got 4 Easter Egger pullets, and a group of 15 Feather Footed Fancies. So they're all either Brahmas, Cochins, or Langshans. And it's quite likely that 50% are cockerels.

I also got a Mystery Chick, which I think is most likely male I think he's a Dominique and I'm quite in love with him. So far, he's a very calm little bird with lovely markings and very soft feathers.

I. am not that worried since these breeds are rare where I live and I shouldn't have any trouble finding homes for these pretty boys.
But I love my boys and want to keep 2-3 of them.
So I need some advice on how to do that, peacefully. Right now, the young birds are in my little Red Coop, which has a nice attached run. I don't plan to let them free range until they are 4 months old. Between now and then, I need to decide how many I'm keeping, how to house them, and create appropriate housing for everyone who's staying.

Some of the decision about who is staying will depend on how well they get along. I don't anticipate big problems with my mature rooster since he is a very sweet, docile bird. Not a fighter. Although I'm certain he would die to protect his girls, he is not aggressive in any way he is something of a scaredy cat, actually
But how well will the boys being raised together get along? and obviously, even if half of them are Pullets, that's only 10-11 pullets, so I can't keep too many cockerels.
I heard some people house their boys together? And maybe only let out one at a time with the girls?
My husband is going to be so thrilled about more adaptations to my coops Lol. Poor Dear Husband. He just meekly does whatever I ask at this point. It's obvious I've become a CCL, Crazy Chicken Lady
Here are a few of my babies

First ismy MysteryChick. I think he's a Dominique. Andi think he's a he. If so, his name is Hank Wllieggs, Sr. !

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[IMG his is my Buff Brahma. Behaves boyish sometimes, but doesn't show signs of comb and wattles being male, so jury is still out
TALT=""]https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/6987286/width/350/height/700[/IMG]

The last two are Cochins. The light one I'm not sure if it will turn out a White or a Blue. I've never had either as chicks. I thought Blue at first, but now I'm not so sure. Sex is still undetermined
The last picks a Black Cochin cockerel. Fairly certain.
The babies are all 5 weeks old and these pics were all taken this week, so they're between 4-5 weeks old in the pics.
Please feel free to comment about anything from my post. And thanks for looking!

 

[donrae]

I've run a grow-out pen with cockerels only. For a while I had my head rooster in there, and he diligently kept the peace and taught the littles manners. I knew he was good with chicks from past experience, so I put the cockerel chicks in with him as young as possible. They grew up with him protecting them and never really challenged him, even at a year old for a few of them. The cockerels did squabble amongst themselves from time to time, but they were together from such a young age they pretty much had things sorted out when the hormones really started flowing.

This was my experience. Other folks have different experiences where roosters/cockerels don't do well together. It's one of those "you have to try it and see how things work out with your individual birds" things.

Some folks swear a bachelor pen has to be out of sight and sound of the hens or it will incite the males to fight. Again, not my experience. My grow-out pen was easily within sound of the hens.

 

[aShMaNv]

Donrae has given you some good advice. I have used the rooster pen method and it works good but it all depends on the roosters. I had a pen of OEGB with 4 roosters and 5 hens and they all grew up together. Figured that I would separate as soon as they started to fight. They never did. They all kind of looked out for each other. There was definitely a dominate but none of the other rooster challenged him and they all got along great. In my layer flock I have 25 hens. Mix of BO, RIR, BR, WL. I have 2 roosters with them a BO and a NH. I am going to have separate them. The BO can't keep up with 25 hens but he won't tolerate the other rooster. This usually occurs due to a small pen. Mine is plenty big enough for them it's just the rooster. A good large pen with plenty of room will help. It's kind of a trial and error thing. I've always heard the rule of thumb as 1 rooster per 10-12 hens.

 

[Free Feather]

I think you would better off putting the cockerels in with your rooster now, not when they are grown. They need to grow up around him so that he can teach them manners and get used to them before they try to mate.