All turned out to be Roosters - Need Help

[Redhead Rae]

Hi thanks for sharing your experience fjwallace! Yeah, many other people are also saying here that having no hens won't make their life sad...so that gives some relief if that's the case. I think she should have bought just 2-3 baby chicks and then the things would have been more manageable I guess....

If they do turn out to be roosters and she wants to keep a rooster flock, I would suggest that if any of her roosters become serious bullies, to eat them and let the nicer ones live in peace. That is how I found my best roosters out of 16 Buff Orp roosters in a batch of 25 chicks. I moved them all into a bachelor pad and culled the bullies ruthlessly.

 

[flyingchicken]

We should be able to give you pretty definite answers once we get the individual pictures. Taken from the angle of the photos I showed you, if they aren't fuzzy or blurry we should be able to get a good look at the saddle and hackle feathers, which should be coming in on birds 14-15 weeks.

I will ask her to try again. She said that they are friendly with her in a limited way to pose properly for the pics. Lol. They kinda start moving away when they see her approaching them. I think She was not petting them enough when they were babies because there is a misconception there that if you pet baby chicks then they would have growth problems lol. I guess it was to keep the kids away from bothering babies of animals and birds.

 

[Molpet]

on this one the hackle feathers look round like a pullet
at 0.38

 

[StarChicken]

I hate to bring this up, but have you checked to be sure your chickens can be brought from India to the United States?

I know there are agricultural laws to be dealt with, so if your GF intends to bring them here, now is the time to check.

 

[Judy Todd]

I hope someone can help me here. My GF got 6 broiler baby chicks 4 months ago, just as pets. She also thought about potential benefit of getting eggs from them at that time. She never had chickens as pets before in her life. Now, the funny part is that all 6 chickens turned out to be males lol. She doesn't want to give them away as she raised them and is emotionally attached to them. She says that if she gives them away, then her dear chickens will be eaten eventually by whoever takes them.

The issue is that now, I feel that they need hens as well to live a happy social life. I was reading somewhere that there should be one rooster for 8-10 hens. That will be too much for my GF to take care of. Any suggestion on what should she do? She thinks she can accommodate maybe 2 more chickens (hens). But I think these 6 crazy guys will be too much if she brings just 2 hens. What happens if she doesn't bring any hen? Will these 6 males spend a depressed life? or what happens if she brings only 2 hens? I am attaching a pic as well. Thank you for help in advance.

Edit: Correction, they are 3 months old.

I would suggest going back to the farm store and checking that you got broilers. There legs do not look big like broilers, and they should be fatter by now. Normally broilers are butchered at 8 weeks or less. No they do not need hens, actually I would strongly advise against it. You have too many roosters(if that is what they are) for a few hens. Wait a while and see what you end up with. If they are roosters they should start trying to crow soon, which is pretty hysterical, as it sounds like they need an oiling. You might be surprised, you might end up with hens after all.

 

[Judy Todd]

I hope someone can help me here. My GF got 6 broiler baby chicks 4 months ago, just as pets. She also thought about potential benefit of getting eggs from them at that time. She never had chickens as pets before in her life. Now, the funny part is that all 6 chickens turned out to be males lol. She doesn't want to give them away as she raised them and is emotionally attached to them. She says that if she gives them away, then her dear chickens will be eaten eventually by whoever takes them.

The issue is that now, I feel that they need hens as well to live a happy social life. I was reading somewhere that there should be one rooster for 8-10 hens. That will be too much for my GF to take care of. Any suggestion on what should she do? She thinks she can accommodate maybe 2 more chickens (hens). But I think these 6 crazy guys will be too much if she brings just 2 hens. What happens if she doesn't bring any hen? Will these 6 males spend a depressed life? or what happens if she brings only 2 hens? I am attaching a pic as well. Thank you for help in advance.

Edit: Correction, they are 3 months old.

I forgot to mention, you cannot keep broilers, They get too big and end up with broken legs, many times cannot walk, all kinds of health troubles. They are meant to be butchered by 8 plus weeks as I mentioned before.

 

[Skipper81]

I started out in same situation with 5 roosters and just kept adding hens and once in a while another rooster
Now I have 12 roosters and 20 hens and everybody gets along just fine
Tell your friend to hit up local tractor supply and get about 10 hens to start

 

[1adybug]

I hope someone can help me here. My GF got 6 broiler baby chicks 4 months ago, just as pets. She also thought about potential benefit of getting eggs from them at that time. She never had chickens as pets before in her life. Now, the funny part is that all 6 chickens turned out to be males lol. She doesn't want to give them away as she raised them and is emotionally attached to them. She says that if she gives them away, then her dear chickens will be eaten eventually by whoever takes them.

The issue is that now, I feel that they need hens as well to live a happy social life. I was reading somewhere that there should be one rooster for 8-10 hens. That will be too much for my GF to take care of. Any suggestion on what should she do? She thinks she can accommodate maybe 2 more chickens (hens). But I think these 6 crazy guys will be too much if she brings just 2 hens. What happens if she doesn't bring any hen? Will these 6 males spend a depressed life? or what happens if she brings only 2 hens? I am attaching a pic as well. Thank you for help in advance.

Edit: Correction, they are 3 months old.

You might want to get at least two coops each with at least one hen per coop, if they are bantams, they will get along, but others will clash if there are hens.

 

[1adybug]

We have two roosters and they do not get along in any way, we have monitor them to keep their flocks separate constantly.

 

[Morrigan]

They don't look at all like broilers to me -- at least as broilers are bred in the US. At 14-15 weeks I would also expect to see some attempts at crowing. I've had roosters start crowing as early as 7 weeks, but 12 to 16 weeks is pretty typical. So, I'm thinking pullets. Better pictures would help, but time will tell. In another month or so you will either be hearing crowing, or seeing eggs.