Big rooster, small hens?

[Ziekioe]

Hi everyone!
I’ve just raised some fluffy chicks almost to the point of lay and they haven’t had a single day of being free-range due to some NASTY magpies in our paddock. We lost 4 chickens when they were younger by being dug out of their coop, these maggies are very aggressive.
We just got a purebred Sussex rooster, he’s very gentle and already gets along so well with our girls. However, he’s HUGE.
The 6 hens we have were a mix from the school hatching program. 3 are a decent size, but the other three are bantams. I helped my family look after chooks when I was a teen, but they always slaughtered their roosters so I’m new to the boys!
Will this be ok? It just struck me that while a big rooster will be useful protecting my precious flock, he might hurt my smaller girls while mating. Thoughts? Experiences?
Cheers in advance!

 

[Shadrach]

Hello Ziekioe.
Welcome to BYC.
An expression that comes to mind is, it's not the dog in the fight, it's the fight in the dog.
So regrading protection size may not be the answer.
One of the many advantages of keeping a single breed flock is the rooster should be the correct weight and size for the hens. While a much larger rooster may be a gentle chap he still has to try and place his feet on the hens shoulders during mating. Large roosters and small hens often means the rooster's spurs make contact with the hens body and this can cause injury.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

It can go either way, I'd say just keep an eye on them.

I had a huge Light Sussex rooster and he caused considerable damage to the Light Sussex hens that were the correct size for him. He didn't have any spurs and his nails weren't long either. It was just down to his rougher mounting technique.

If our hens were smaller, I have no doubt he would have caused crushing injuries, broken some bones or their necks.

Some roosters will leave really small hens alone, others won't.

If the rooster isn't over zealous during the act, he may be fine. If he starts being too rough and completely squashes them then the best thing to do is get rid of him

 

[Keeperofmunchkins]

I have a rooster who is almost three times the size and weight of my serama hen and he has never injured her when mating, but he is very gentle with all his hens.

 

[Acre4Me]

We have a very large BJG rooster. We have 1 BJG female and then over a dozen female hens and pullets, all smaller than rooster, but none are bantams. The BJG female is correctly sized, however, she is the one with the most impact from mating:missing feathers to where there is now bare skin, although we are noticing some new feather growth. The rooster mates many of the females I have witnessed, not just the BJG. Hoping with the new girls coming into lay that he will spread his love around a bit more so the BJG gets the opportunity to get her feathers back. The smaller females get mated but seem to be fine. We do have a couple of smaller/more trim females in this batch of younger (11 week olds) chicks, so that may present a problem in the future. At the moment the rooster ignores them.

Good luck

 

[quackersandfern]

I think they will be fine, he should look after them. Just keep an eye.

 

[MountainGaurdian]

Full size roosters do tend to be rather large, and can be a bit much for smaller hens sometimes. It depends a lot on how aggressive he is in the breeding process some are aggressive others not so much. You will just have to watch and see.

I picked up a free rooster many years ago when I went to buy two large Alpine milk goats, we left with the milk goats, a 3 1/2 foot tall rooster, four rabbits, and a sheep... All in a large 3/4 ton Dodge maxivan with our 6 children four of whom were still in car seats and my wife in her wheelchair... lol.. All I could think was, man I hope I don't get pulled over, this would be fun to explain...

That rooster was great with my hens and many of my hens were actually half banty and were really quite small.

 

[Ziekioe]

Update!
He’s the most gentle rooster I’ve ever seen! And his bff seems to be the tiny bantam, but he hasn’t tried mating with her (she’s bossy).
Yay!

 

[aart]

Update!
He’s the most gentle rooster I’ve ever seen! And his bff seems to be the tiny bantam, but he hasn’t tried mating with her (she’s bossy).
Yay!

Good deal!
How old is he?

 

[Ziekioe]

Good deal!
How old is he?

He is 7-8 months old. And I have no idea how good his fighting skills are because he is so big & imposing, the magpies have simply landed nearby the flock and squawked angrily instead of attacking! Not one single WWE takedown since we got Max.
He does a good job of letting the girls know where the food is, but he has yet to eat directly from my hands. We’re getting close though!