Bachelor Flock

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My 'rooster row' pens make up part of one of the boundaries of the run where my mixed flock of hens lives. Over the past 5 or so years I've only had two squabbles in my bachelor flocks that required intervention. Distance from hens in order to keep peace has not been necessary in my experience. If anything, I feel like it distracts them from fighting more because they spend a large part of their day flirting through the fence with the hens. As with anything involving these birds, though, your mileage may vary.
 
Aunt Angus said:
I am seriously considering starting a flock of bachelors.

How far away from my hens do they need to be to avoid deadly conflict? Is within earshot but out of sight far enough?

TIA!
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Why would you want all those extra mouths to feed? Keeping them for breeding, eating?
 
For me, it's mostly sentimentality. I know, feed is rising in price and roosters don't even lay eggs to make up for it, but I like them and I have these birds mostly as a hobby that makes me happy. Seeing those beautiful boys crowing, dancing, feeding the girls their little tidbits through the fence, it makes me happy. It's worth the extra feed to me.

I do have a pen allotted for my extra breeder boys, too, though. I lost both of my breeder boys for one of my pens earlier this year, so I'm not taking any chances on not having some backups just in case this time around!
 
Aunt Angus said:
Question still remains: how far away from my hens do the bachelors need to be in order to prevent chaos?
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The only time I did it, I put a wire divider in the coop with males on one side and females on the other. I didn't notice any problems. So based on that experience, no distance is needed at all.

(I was preparing for breeding season by separating ALL the roosters for a month or so, before matching up the groups I wanted. So I didn't do it long-term. But these were cockerels & pullets not quite a year old, and it was springtime, so any hormones should have been at an all-time high when I was doing it.)
 
NatJ said:
The only time I did it, I put a wire divider in the coop with males on one side and females on the other. I didn't notice any problems. So based on that experience, no distance is needed at all.

(I was preparing for breeding season by separating ALL the roosters for a month or so, before matching up the groups I wanted. So I didn't do it long-term. But these were cockerels & pullets not quite a year old, and it was springtime, so any hormones should have been at an all-time high when I was doing it.)
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Thank you! This is the info I needed.
 

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