Bad roo?

[skcalkins]

My mom and dad are trying to get more chickens. They bought a rooster and he seemed to be getting along fine with the 5 chickens they have. We decided to separate him with 1 chicken so we would know which ones were the babies but, she has stopped laying and so have the other chickens since we took the rooster out. Any thoughts? Also some layed a very small egg after we got him. The chickens are over 1 year old. Any help would be great.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

If he is stressing them out by mating them too much they do slow down on laying it seems like. Mine did. Is he the only roo you have? How many hens to roos do you have? Moving them to a different area also stressed them a bit and so they do take a little while to start to lay again. Any other info you could share would be helpful as well.

 

[skcalkins]

They have 5 chickens and the 1 rooster. They chickens are part of the chick chain my daughter did for 4-H. They are RIR, we split them with my parents as they wanted fresh eggs also. I love these birds and am wanting some more since my dogs got in our pen and wanted to play with them and broke their necks. They separated the 1 hen and rooster about a week a week ago.

 

[skcalkins]

So...does no one have any idea? I don't want to buy another rooster want to give this one a chance. Is there anything we can try?

 

[chicmom]

I am not understand your reason for separating the rooster with one hen....aren't all five of the chickens adult hens? Or are some babies? I think you should just let him run free with all the ladies, unless some are babies.......

 

[skcalkins]

They collect the eggs to eat and didn't want to leave all the eggs, not knowing which would be the babies. Should they just stop collecting eggs for awhile? My mom said that they weren't sitting on the eggs.