My husband & I are very new to chicken raising, & our flock currently consists of only 2 5-month-old Americauna roosters that we've had since they were about 2 months old. (A short time after my husband had built our coop, a "friend of a friend" was desperate to find homes for them. She had gotten them as babies, being told they were female & when they turned out to be roos, her older rooster tried to do them in!)
Our original plan was obviously to have hens for the eggs & we finally found a good home for one of the boys. We are scheduled to drop off the one roo this weekend & pick up 6 hens, that are similar in age, later that day. So here is my question: how long should we wait before introducing the hens to the rooster & what is the best way to go about it? I've heard some advice already saying we should put the girls in the coop that same night with the roo. Is it going to be traumatic for the roo to "lose" his brother & get new friends all the in the same day? And right now, the 2 boys free range over our 2 acres during the day & go into their coop by themselves at dusk. Should my roo be able to introduce the girls to the routine, even though he is inexperienced? And I am a stay-at-home mom, so luckily I have a very flexible schedule, so how much supervision should they have at first, to make sure no one's getting picked on too badly?
Thanks for any advice!!
Our original plan was obviously to have hens for the eggs & we finally found a good home for one of the boys. We are scheduled to drop off the one roo this weekend & pick up 6 hens, that are similar in age, later that day. So here is my question: how long should we wait before introducing the hens to the rooster & what is the best way to go about it? I've heard some advice already saying we should put the girls in the coop that same night with the roo. Is it going to be traumatic for the roo to "lose" his brother & get new friends all the in the same day? And right now, the 2 boys free range over our 2 acres during the day & go into their coop by themselves at dusk. Should my roo be able to introduce the girls to the routine, even though he is inexperienced? And I am a stay-at-home mom, so luckily I have a very flexible schedule, so how much supervision should they have at first, to make sure no one's getting picked on too badly?
Thanks for any advice!!
