New @ all related to hens and roosters in Vermont

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klillie

klillie

Chirping
9 Years
Jul 18, 2014
18
0
82
Vermont
Hi. We are so very new to all of this. Our son asked his dad for chickens about 3yrs ago and we kept saying no because at that time he was about 7yrs old. Now @ 11yrs old, we had him read a book (which he did over the course of a week) about chickens and then after the family discussion, we purchased what we thought would be 24 hens all for laying eggs from a local store. This was back in March of this year. We've discovered we have 18 hens and 6 roosters!! 4 Silkie Bantams, 1 New Jersey Giant we've named Rocky (I'll explain later) and 1 Partridge Rock roosters. Sometime in May we moved them from their enclosed housing in our basement to outside to an enclosed 10ftx5ft enclosure - a temp. fix. We'd come home to find some of them alive but pecked at and on a Thursday 6 were severely injured and the next day Friday 4 more were badly injured. Your average person would have probably used them for meat, but we cared for them all and brought them back. We found out that the badly injured ones were all the roosters and that they must have put up a fight to save the hens. On our property which is about 3.5 acres in northeast VT in the woods, we've recently seen near the chickens, foxes, raccoons, and a skunk. We don't know what got in to injure them, but we saw the claw marks on the wood to the coop and we don't believe the chickens/roosters hurt each other to that point. Rocky was injured the worst with a broken leg, all his tail feathers taken off and some skin/feathers off his right side. We felt that if he survived that weekend, that we would help him heal. He did and now runs on a hop and walks fairly well. His tail feathers have grown back as well. They have outgrown that temporary coop and over the course of 10 days of our 14 day vacation, we built them an 8ft by 12ft fully insulated house 2ft off the ground. We feel that with their job as our hen layers, they needed a comfortable place to be at. Many of the coops were a couple thousand dollars for up to 12 hens. We did it all from scraps from when we built our home 6yrs back. To date, on screws, fencing, insulation and a replacement circular saw blade, we've only spent $250! The rest were scraps. So, some advice would be appreciated, 1) what to do with so many roosters (our sons want to see how they all do together in their new home before getting rid of some of the roosters), 2) our first 2 small eggs came over the weekend from leghorns which we felt were laying early, but the roosters have begun to "dance" around the girls and been aggressive to mate with them, so if we don't have eggs in another few weeks, would the roosters be the cause of the lack of eggs? Thanks.
 
Southern Dad said:
Michael, I've been reading on here that the rooster is the protector of the flock and he's the one that keeps the chickens in line, getting them all into the house each night, etc. I agree that the klillie has a mix of rooster to chicken that won't work out well, not unlike myself but would eliminating all the roosters be a bad thing, overall?


Diva, after yours and Michael's posts, you've got this newbie really thinking. I'll be the thread starter is wondering a bit, too.
Click to expand...

There are going to be BYC members who disagree with drumstick diva and myself, but in my experience and opinion, the only reason to keep roosters is if you're going to hatch fertilized eggs. I have not found roosters to be effective protectors of the flock. They might be with some of the more aggressive breeds, but not with the docile layers that I raise. The predators that take chickens from the flock do so whether there are roosters or not (sometimes it's the rooster that gets taken). I also haven't observed that hens go back into the coop each night any better with roosters than without roosters, and while there may be an occasional benefit (like egg fertilization) to having a rooster, I'm of the opinion that the negatives of having roosters usually far outweigh the positives.
 
I have only three hens and two roosters. I know bad math, I'm working on it. However, I was concerned about the same thing. My chicks were born Feb 22. Last Monday, I found the first two eggs. Then no eggs for almost a week. Saturday we got one egg and Sunday we got two. I was told it would be five or six months before the first eggs. So you may be just a bit early for the eggs. In addition, my roosters are pretty amorous creatures. That hasn't stopped the eggs.

But I'm a New Egg here to learn, as well.
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! Sorry about your injured birds, hope they recover. If the roosters are already bothering the pullets you probably want to go ahead and remove the extras now before they really start beating up the pullets.
 
How are your hens divided breed/ size wise, do you plan to have the Silkies in with the standard birds? (Silkies often do get picked on so you may eventually have to separate them.) If everybody is in one coop, you probably want to stick with one rooster to avoid fights, though with 18 hens you could probably have two if there is enough room.
 
Thanks Southern Dad, we expected eggs in August, so we'll keep checking each day. All of what we believed were hens were held since we got them, so when we found out about the roosters (who had been held since we got them), probably made them gentle. So many folks have said roosters are mean. So far not.
 
Hello there and welcome to BYC!
frow.gif


Generally roosters are kept 1 roo to 8 to 10 hens. Any less hens and they can do damage to the hens. So you will probably need to rehome extras or get them their own harems.

When pullets first start to lay, they don't have their egg machines in gear yet. So the eggs will be small, infrequent and sometimes even without yolks. So give them time to a mature. And never let roos be rough with hens. Not only is this abusive to the hens, but you do not want to pass down any traits like this to off spring. So remove rough roos and keep 1 roo per 8 to 10 hens.
 
Thanks so much TwoCrows. The 2 eggs were small. I appreciate the info on the roosters. Is it better to remove them now versus in a few weeks when they are all in their new home to see how they adapt??
 

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