*Hens are 18 months and 10 months
* Choosing from Orpington, RIR, or Dixie Rainbow roo
* Hens spend most of their time running around in a 50'x50' yard and come out free range a few times a week.
* This rooster would be coming from a lady down the road who is looking to get rid of one of the roosters.
* Yes, we have quarantine areas, garage, other side of house, spare room.
* 7 hens
* Want a rooster because we hear that hens are happier with a roo around, we've always wanted one, and I think it's terrible that everyone wants to throw away their rooster.
The first thing I would recommend is you get a rooster that is of a similar size to your hens. Roosters are in general a bit bigger than the hens but very large roosters with very small hens can be a disaster.
One rooster with 7 or 8 hens is fine. I have four tribes here with a rooster in each and three or four hens. This ratio of hens to roosters is fine. While a rooster will happily fertilise the eggs of 10 or 15 hens he will have favourites and these will be who he mates with most and protects most.
Quarantine is always an issue; most just can’t be bothered with the hassle. However, when it all goes wrong and it does more often than one might imagine, well, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
With me, nothing with feathers comes here without 30 days in the isolation unit. No, it won’t guarantee you wont transmit some disease like Mareks but other contagious diseases, particularly repository diseases should be apparent in a 30 day period.
@Mrs. K has a point in that if you know the rooster before and it has shown no signs of ill health then the risk is a lot less.
Mrs. K is also correct in her comments regarding flock dynamics. This catches a lot of people out who are used to hen only flocks. When a rooster arrives the hens become his. This doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be just as friendly towards you as they were, but the rooster may not see this in quite the same way. One of the points of having a rooster is that they are protective of the hens and you may get included in what the rooster thinks his hens need to be protected from. It’s a risk you take.
Once again as Mrs. K points out, be prepared for what looks to us humans as some rough behaviour from the rooster towards your hens. Hens of the age you have should be able to take care of themselves but eventually they will allow the rooster to mate with them and there can be a few battles on the way. The time to intervene is when blood is being spilt.
You also need to be prepared for your hens fighting over the roosters attention, Sometimes a stable hierarchy with the hens gets disrupted when the rooster arrives. They sort this out themselves; sometimes its easy, other times not.
My opinion is hens can be just as content in a single sex environment as they can be with a rooster.
I’ve had times here when a tribe has lost it’s rooster and the senior hen takes over and does as good a job at protecting the group as a rooster may.
If you free range unsupervised and you have predators you need to accept that the chances are high that you’ll lose the rooster in an attack. You need to be prepared for this as well if as you imply you are fond of roosters.
There are lots of articles here on BYC regarding rooster behaviour and how to deal with it. Read them all and then try one thing at a time in the event you get problems.
I like roosters to. I’ve had lots here over the years and those that have died, even when it’s taken a while for us to see eye to eye, I still miss.
