Adding a young rooster to older hens, HELP!

[ashnnick]

I have 6 1 hear old hens, my husband and I bought 7 new chicks back in January. We were told from the store that they were all pullets. They are 9 weeks old now and I'm pretty sure 1 of the 7 is a roo. How do we introduce him to the older girls bc they have never been around a rooster. We really didn't want a male but we are able to have them where we live, but this would be our first male!

 

[enola]

When the new chicks are 1/2 the size of the adults, they can be introduced. Make sure the young ones have a few places to hide so they can a pie the grouchy older hens. The older hens will teach your young rooster chcken manners. Make sure you have a couple of extra places for them to eat and drink. Sometimes older hens are not really good at sharing their feeders.

 

[ashnnick]

Thank you for the advice! Should I introduce him to the older girls by himself at first?

 

[enola]

No, put him and the pullets in there at the same time. The more chickens you add at the same time, the fewer times they will get pecked. If you just put the rooster in by himself, everyone of your hens will peck him every time they get a chance.

How big is your coop and run?

 

[ChickityChina]

My Aunt used to always tell me to get roosters who were younger than the hens. She always had the most well behaved roosters too. She swore by this method and said that it taught the roos some humility and they were well mannered because they had to balance out their naturally dominant behavior by learning how to act around her hens who were already established. I don't know how much of this was just her luck with roos, but it always made perfect sense to me! Sounds like you might be in a perfect position to test that theory for yourself too.

 

[ashnnick]

We are increasing the size of the run currently to accomodate adding 7 more, but I do know we can have up to 24-30 chickens in our coop.

 

[enola]

Do you know the dimensions of the building?

 

[ashnnick]

Our coop dimensions are 12 x 8

 

[enola]

That is plenty of room for 13 - 15 chickens. Make sure you have a couple of places for the younger chickens to take cover for resting.