3 gentle roosters in solitary bachelor pad pen, suddenly aggressive, and injuring one another.

[McChooky]

Keeping more than one rooster requires separate pens to prevent injuries. In the best scenario you'll have one or two that only get minor injuries but there's always the chance the dominant rooster will kill one.Raising livestock isn't for the faint of heart because somebody has to make tough decisions .Until you can come up with a better plan you need to separate this one

 

[Toffael]

Thanks for the reply..how exactly do we tell who is the dominant rooster? It's not totally clear. And in this recent bout of fighting(last 3-4days), this was the first time that this guy got attacked. Previously it was just between the other two.
Is there NO solution possible to salvage this trio of roosters?
We have one older rooster with the 17 hens in another area. Would it be silly to attempt to integrate this attacked rooster in with the flock like that?
Thanks

 

[McChooky]

Make 3 separate pens for your extra roosters and keep them separate from your hens and main rooster

 

[Mrs. K]

When people start with chickens, they often are very uncomfortable with culling birds. They think of them as pets and part of the family. But chickens don't get that memo. Often times I see posts where the bachelor pens are tooted as a solution to too many roosters.

And as stated above - sometimes they work, sometimes they work for a while, and sometimes they don't.

Personally, I would expect none of these roosters to work together after this. I think if you pull the victim, the remaining two will begin to fight. As Ridgerunner often states - there is no way to say for sure what any living animal will do, but I would expect them to fight too.

Mrs K

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

At the moment I only have one rooster, but in the past when I had 2-3 fellows whose bloodlines I wanted, I set them up in separate pens and gave each one 3 hens. I kept the main flock with my best rooster and made sure each pen had about a 4 foot high barrier blocking the view between the individual runs and no way for the roos to come in contact with each other. Each roo had his own hens and it seemed to keep everybody peaceful.

(edited to add that I don't tolerate hateful roos. The only permanent way to have sweet roos is to cull the bad guys and keep them from polluting your bloodline.)

HTH

Rusty

 

[ChickoryHatchery17]

i think that if you were to seperate them it would be a good idea but they would need a friend so maybe a hen

 

[MyFlockIsMyLife]

Please take what a lot of these other commenters have said to heart! I had 4 chicks hatch in April ‘24. 3 male, 1 female. Already had 4 hens and 1 OG roo. I kept them essentially *hoping* that my chickens would go against their ingrained behaviors, and what do you know? They did not. I’m now preparing to cull one of the hatched roos, and will most likely have to dispatch at least 1 more… Good luck if you decide to make separate pens for them, or decide to re-home. I hope it works out for you. I couldn’t even give my roos away for free

 

[McChooky]

I had 2 that roosted side by side and never fought but the girls were chased and mated so much that it caused a lot of unnecessary stress

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I did not see where we are told how old these "roosters" are. Did I miss it? Or are these cockerels just coming into maturity? Not that it matters, I guess. What does concern me is that a 6-yo child is raising these birds. Please be careful! Cockerels coming into maturity can turn on humans without warning, with children often being their first targets, and they can inflict serious injury.