Bachelor flock

[dreamofwinter]

For those successfully keeping a bachelor flock - how tolerant do you find you need to be of fighting?
My three boys are going through a phase where they want to (and often have) beat each other bloody. Just comb and wattle wounds, but we all know how those bleed! I don't see a defined bully in the group, though it's worth noting that it's mainly the two Brahmas sparring and the bantam Cochin without a mark on him.
These are cockerels born in spring 2023. They have a small sleeping coop inside an enclosed/covered 8x16 hoop run and also about 150 square feet outside when the weather isn't raging. To make matters more complicated I would like to add a fourth cockerel (or swap him in and take one of the others out) - of course this may not be possible.

 

[Mrs. K]

of course this may not be possible.

Thing is, that is what you have to say when you have cockerels, or roosters. Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't. It is a crapshoot. Sometimes it will work for a while, and then quits working. They don't call it cockfighting for nothing.

Most people on here would be appalled if you were selling tickets so people could watch the cockfighting... but cockfighting is cockfighting and is an expected outcome of two strange roosters together. You ask how much fighting is too much fighting - that depends on you. I do not like that and I adjust the flock so that it does not happen.

Sometimes people get the notion, that if you can't keep them with the hens, you can keep them in a bachelor flock and all will be well. That is not quite solid. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it works for a while, sometimes it never works. Some birds do fine in a bachelor pen, some never do. Sometimes you can get two to work well together, and add a third, and hell breaks loose. Just because you have gotten the hens out of the equation, does not mean all of the male birds will live together.

Adding a 4th strange bird to 3 already fighting birds, is pretty much a recipe for a disastrous fight. If they were free ranging 100% of the time, I would expect some fighting, dissolving into an outcast or tolerance of presence. In confinement, it will be a worse wreck, as the ability to back down or get out of sight is limited by the confinement. As AArt says, 'roosters are where the romance of keeping chickens meets reality'. And it is not real pretty.

So... why are you keeping them? You cannot wish them nice, and really it is not such a nice life when there is a lot of fighting. To each his/her own, they are your birds, I solve for peace in the flock.

Mrs K

 

[Molpet]

I harvest the extras.
I kept a half dz or so cockerels in a grow out pen. 8x8 hoop coop surrounded by 100ft four ft tall e net. Every so often one would get beat up too much and fly over. But if they couldn't get away it might have been a blood bath.
I normally keep a dominate rooster and a subordinate in each coop. I have 4 coops that share about 150 x600 ft poultry yard. Once in a while there's a dust up, but they can run away

 

[orelsi]

Any reason you don't hens with the flock?

 

[Mrs. K]

Too many roosters to too few hens causes problems for the hens.

 

[dreamofwinter]

Good input, thanks folks! The three bachelors are growouts from last spring. Right now I have my hens condensed into larger flocks with one rooster each, for ease of winter chicken keeping. Come springtime one or all of these boys will have a chance at their own small flock. Not all will make the cut, of course, but I've found that aside from obvious physical or aggression issues it's hard to tell who a rooster is in his first year. Once he gets past that first randy spring I can see his real personality better. These three boys are all well bred, people friendly, and for the most part nice to each other, they just have occasional bloody dust-ups. I added more sight blockers and elevation variations in their area and will keep working with them to see if we can get through winter.

The fourth cockerel will probably become dinner, sadly. He's not aggressive and is a good flock leader even at 6 months old, but he's a backyard mix, closely related to many in my flock, and crows excessively. Being a young Orpington, he'll likely be a very tasty chicken stew once I can bring myself to do the deed.