Unbalanced flock… …

[007Sean]

Howdy, and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

Thanks for joining our community!

 

[MrsNorthie]

1. I bought more chicks (hens specifically) only 5 days old at this point..I have 6 but looking to get at least 5 more..

I think we have both fallen into the Chicken Math trap. We ordered 10 hens from Hoover Hatchery and then 10 lucky dip, because we knew we wanted at least 1 rooster. The 10 lucky dip all turned out to be roosters, we lost one of the hens with in a few days of their arrival and one of the "should have been" hens turned out to be a rooster, so we ended up with 8 hens and 11 roosters..(what luck.).

Once we realized that there was an over abundance of male-ness we ordered 30 more hens 2 lots of 15, that will arrive about 4 weeks apart, in hopes of not having to cull too many of the the boys. Due to the craziness in the world our first lot will not ship until 5/31 and puberty hit, and we had to drop down to 3 roosters. We were hoping, with being Buffs, they would be docile enough that it would be ok and most of my roos were the first to be friendly, so needless to say, I am a little heart broken.

Lesson learned, even buffs will bully even if they all grew up together. The hens take a beating while the boys try to jockey for control over the flock. Luckily, we have only had one injury and she is healing well and things have started to quiet down. We have a large coop and really large run that we are expanding so that we will have 10+ sqft per chicken once the newbies are added. I would free range but we are close -ish to the road and have an abundance of birds of prey around. (my neighbor lost 3 to hawks in one week.) therefor, we are building the run big enough that they feel like they are free-ranging.

 

[Rapp7]

Create two separate flocks once your other baby chicks are old enough (near laying) so that each rooster has their own set of hens. Rarely do male roosters happily coexist with each other when hens are around. I say this out of experience and also empathy because I truly understand what it feels like to care about them all and wanting to make it work out.