4 young roosters chasing my hens - is this normal young roo behavoir?

[panipuri]

Here's the summary of what's going on:

I have 4 young roosters (born late feb) and 1 older rooster from last spring. 2 of 4 began crowing past week.

I was hoping to hang onto them until they mature so I can get an idea of which to keep (observe personality better). I'm not that thrilled with the rooster I have currently, and am hoping one of the 4 new ones is better.

BUT... they are ganging up and chasing my hens - not all hens, but the ones that run and squeel - so they're all having to get 'aprons' to protect their backs because of the excessive feather pulling. I feel horrible about this and need to resolve this issue soon. They're not even really mating. Just a hen will get nervous, run across the path of one young roo, and sure enough they all spot it and go on a wild chase after her. I don't see any rooster to rooster fighting of any sort. Not even the old one to the young - and he usually makes no effort to chase them off of a hen. (strange?)


1 - Is this normal in this situation? Or do I have aggressive baby roos and a lousy non-protective older roo? Is it just a 'gang mentality' going on?

2- I just would like input as to whether any of these roos are worthy to keep. Or if this is unusual and bad behavior. ie, if I just kept 1 young roo and got rid of all the rest, would it maybe have some hope.

 

[panipuri]

any suggestions whether this is normal for young roos to chase/attack old hens?

This situation caught me by complete surprise because I first off expected the old Roo to be protective/selfish of his hens (fight off the little roos). AND I expected the lil roos to duke it out between each other too for rights etc. None of that is going on - just one big gang rape/chase mess...

Normal??? Bad batch of roos???

 

[angelbabyamy]

Sounds normal to me, I have the same problem and my older roosters aren't doing anything about it either. Check out my post from yesterday, maybe someone's else's reply will help. My hens are very stressed. I got TWO eggs yesterday and I have A LOT of chickens!

 

[panipuri]

thanks the thread helped. Can't believe what I'm witnessing - was not expecting it to be this way.

How long does this last?? A week? A year? totally dependant on whether the rooster is alone or with his fellow 'rapers' ??

 

[angelbabyamy]

When they are going throught their "teenage" time and learning how to mate with the hens, it is pretty bad. Most of the roosters I've had seem to start in around 16 weeks. I've never had as many roosters before as I do now. ( I have 2 fifteen month olds, 1 six month and 2 four month olds) When they start in, I usually get rid of them or my son has killed them for me.

I don't get home from work until after six and my husband didn't start my scald pot the other day, so I didn't get around to butchering my Marans, I am going to try to get it done this weekend. I locked them all in a rabbit cage except my BLRW rooster. It was so peaceful out there, no hens squawking, everybody was so calm and relaxed and my rooster was being a gentleman. Seems like when there is more competition, they act 10 x worse. My Lavender Orpingtons must mature a lot slower, because I am positive I have at least 3 and none are crowing or acting aggressive. They were hatched around the first week of February. I will probably keep one of them and my BLRW.

My egg production is so awful right now. I got 4 eggs yesterday and 4 the day before. I have at least 28 hens of laying age, but a lot are going broody on me. I am hoping that locking up the roosters gets rid of some stress and they start laying again.

 

[panipuri]

wow .. sounds just like my place. Must be the crowd mentality. Had one rooster last year and there was none of this. Guess he was not feeling the need to show off or compete so no feather pulling or chasing ever took place that I can recall. I was completely expecting rooster fights, not 'daddy' showing young roos how to chase and rape, argh. These guys don't even know quite yet what they're doing, so it's more of a (cruel) game to them right now. One of my hens who goes broody easily was very upset and trying to protect other hens the last few days and now she is indeed broody again and extra grumpy haha.. sigh.

We're getting rid of all but one. May even get rid of him and take a rooster break. We put 3 up in a shed today and the calm is wonderful for everyone. 2 of the ones that haven't got the chase urge we left out and they're behaving so far. Could wake up tomorrow and be a different story though.

I will say that individually these roosters are all still descent roos, may even be great roos (past this hormone fiesta). It's just a mess having them all together though. I will be glad to find them all new homes quite shortly.