rooster to hen ratio

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ninny

ninny

Songster
12 Years
Jul 1, 2007
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I have a free range flock. I have 20 hens for sure, 6 roosters,4 not sures.

My question is if these not sure ones turn out to be roosters should i be finding them new homes?

Thanks!
 
idealy nore more than 1 per flock, depending on space. it they are free range, large coop, then i would keep MAX 4 roos, and maybe try to seperate into 4 groups of 4 hens and 1 roo, rarely letting them mix.

good luck with your flock.
 
From eveything I have read and observed here at my flock, a single rooster will easily take care of a dozen hens. If you separate them into flocks, and keep the roosters apart, you will have to make sure they always stay separated, otherwise they will fight with some pretty gruesome results. If the roosters are kept together in a bigger flock, as they were raised together, they won't kill each other, but will establish their own place in the pecking order.
As I said, this is only what I have read and seen here in my flock.
 
I guess i'll keep a close watch i'll be getting more hens next year so that will help. My house always turns into a chicken buffet for the native wildlife so we always have extra roosters to keep them safe.
 
It is hard to say what will happen with different hen to rooster ratios. There are just too many variables and the personalities of the individual roosters are important in the outcome.

One of the problems is that the roosters may fight a lot and injure or kill each other if there are too many roosters for the hens. If they ae raised together, they often work this out with no serious problems but not always. They can change as or after they go through puberty. If they are not raised together, you will probably see a lot of fireworks and it can get real serious. Still, they can often work it out but the process is dangerous and rough. If they are raised together, your odds of them working it out are fairly good. If they do work it out, they make a very good team on protecting the hens.

Another problem is that the roosters can damage the hens by overmating. The dominant rooster will pick out his favorites and the others kind of get the leftovers on down the dominance line. If there are not enough hens to go around, the roosters can damage the hens. A hen can lose feathers due to mating anyway, no matter the hen rooster ratio. With too many matings, she can lose feathers and then the roosters spurs can injure her back or sides. It can be a fatal problem. Since a dominant rooster will pick out his favorites, this can happen even with one rooster and plenty of hens if his technique is especially rough and he really likes his favorite but the problem is much more likely with multiple roosters or lower ratios.

You will often see a recommended ratio for full sized fowl of 10 or 12 hens per rooster. This comes from one rooster being able to fertilize all the hens with this ratio. If there are more hens than this, all the eggs may not be fertile. The more hens the better, of course, but this ratio is not a guarantee that you will not have overmating problems. It depends on the roosters technique and how much he really likes his favorites.

A low ratio does not guarantee a problem either. Many people keep breeding pairs of one hen to one rooster or two hens to one rooster and do not experience overmating problems.

In your case, I would expect you will need remove some of the rooster. Even with 6 roosters and 24 hens, I think the odds of your having problems are pretty high, but it could work out. It's certainly something you will have to watch.
 
When is the best time to cull them? I have to two that are challenging me daily. Im getting tried of it. One is 7ish months old the other is two. I just don't want to cull these two then have the others start.
 
When is the best time to cull them? I have to two that are challenging me daily. Im getting tried of it. One is 7ish months old the other is two. I just don't want to cull these two then have the others start.
 
From your previous post, I understand you mean find them a new home when you say cull them. It does not mean to eat them. I think the best time is when you can. If you know you are getting rid of these two, why do you want to keep paying to feed them? Anyway, your choice, not mine.

When you remove chickens from a flock, you change the pecking order. This has to get resorted so you can expect some pecking and possibly fighting. I can't tell you how bad it will be. I'd suggest that once you know which ones you want to get rid of, the sooner the better and not just from an expense to feed them context. The flock will reorder the pecking order then settle back down. The younger they are the easier this seems to be. Since you are not sure of the sex of several of them yet, I'd assume much of your flock is fairly young.
 

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