Bachelor Coop? Is it possible?

[KerriBerrie]

Hello everyone!

I've received a lot of good advice and information on here, so thank you for that!! I bring to you today a more out of the box question in planning for the future.

I have heard about people keeping groupss of only roosters and it working out. I believe they were referred to as "bachelor coops". Does anyone have experience with doing this?

I have 19 chicks and 4 (at least) are going to be roosters for sure. I'd like to keep one with my hens, but don't want the other 3 going to the pot. This sounded almost too out there to be true, but gave me a bit of hope. We have pasture animals with plenty of free range space the roosters could enjoy and can easily set up another coop for them. From my understanding, as long as hens aren't with them, there shouldn't be excessive aggression and they supposedly cohabit fine together.

Does anyone have more information on this topic? I really have found much on it.

Thank you all!

 

[Mrs. K]

I have used a bachelors pen, but only for a few months. It worked fine, although often times there are crowing contests. My pen was out of sight, if they were not free ranging but not out of hearing. I did not let the roosters free-range at the same time as my laying flock.

In my honest opinion, a bachelor pad is a short term, about 6 months solution. You cannot wish roosters nice. It might work for a much longer period and probably has for some people, it depends on the roosters and the set up. It might only work for a few weeks, but be aware, with roosters, things can work fine and then go to heck. Then the fighting can be terrible. There is no way to predict with absolute conviction if it will work. If it does not work, you need a plan that can be implemented immediately to separate the roosters.

I see that you want to keep a rooster with the girls, if having roosters being culled is difficult for you or not acceptable, it would be better to buy sex linked chicks, so that you only get pullets instead of hatching eggs. Hatching eggs is fun, but you will quickly have too many roosters, even if you do have quite a bit of space. Last year I hatched 11, got 3 pullets.

Mrs K

 

[KerriBerrie]

Thank you for the response.

I grew up culling chickens, turkeys, ducks, sheep, and all kinds of animals so it isn't new to me, it's just not something I prefer. I'm sure I could find another home for them in time or always surrender them to my humane society that takes barnyard animals in. When I saw "bachelor pens" were a thing, it seemed worth it to look into.

I ordered 7 sex linked and hatched 12. It seems I got very lucky with my ratios. Two years ago when we hatched from our other flock we only had 3 pullets and over 10 roosters.

 

[Gray Farms]

I have a year round bachelor pen for my back up breeder roosters. It works best if the roosters grew up together and have never been with hens. And even better if it has solid sides so that they can't see the hens. Also adding a rooster thats been with hens into the bachelors doesn't work out well. And I've also experienced the crowing contests. As they grow I pick out potential breeder cockerels and put them into the "back up boys pen" I call it. And then cull out of that pen for final breeders. Then sell off what I don't need in the spring and start over

 

[bobbi-j]

I had a "bachelor pen" a couple of years ago. Actually, it was a grow-out pen for the extra roosters we chose to process. But it did work to have the boys all penned up - they were even within hearing and sight of the hens and did just fine. Good thing we don't have close neighbors, though, as the crowing did seem out of hand at times. (Our house is far enough away from the coops that it was nice background noise, but if we had close neighbors, I don't know if they would enjoy it so much)

 

[azygous]

The first time I found myself with two extra cockerels, I built another coop at the opposite end of the run for them. Then I added a bachelor run coming off that coop at a ninety degree angle to the main run. The coop had a pop hole entrance from both runs, and it's really come in handy for other uses over the years, even when there have been no roosters.

It also helps to have plenty of space, and even if you can free-range your roosters. The farmers around here manage their roosters by simply turning them out to free range each day, and there seems to be very little problems with conflict.

 

[KerriBerrie]

Thank you for the responses. It sounds like it has the chance to be successful at least in the short term. I'm the one in the house who would take the brunt of crowing battles! Very good information. I'll take it all into consideration. If things don't seem to be working, I will have plans B, C, and D in place.

 

[bobbi-j]

Thank you for the responses. It sounds like it has the chance to be successful at least in the short term. I'm the one in the house who would take the brunt of crowing battles! Very good information. I'll take it all into consideration. If things don't seem to be working, I will have plans B, C, and D in place.

Good! It's necessary to always have a plan, and then at least two more in case the first one doesn't work.