Can multiple roosters live together?

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Losthorizons

Losthorizons

In the Brooder
May 18, 2017
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Hello,
I need some advice. I'm trying to decide what to do with my new rooster problem. We have one full grown Easter Egger rooster "Loki" and he is a little over a year old. He currently lives with 3 hens (2 australorps and 1 white rock). This is the first group of chickens we've had. We lost some hens to Coyotes in December. :(

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"Loki"

We then added 22 new baby chicks to a second pen - and we ended up with 5 roosters (3 easter eggers, 1 olive egger, and 1 cinnamon queen). We definitely don't need that many. I'm guessing the older existing rooster will not get along with the new baby roos. But I don't know if it's easy to adopt out a full grown rooster - I wouldn't want him to be killed, and I want him to go to a good home.

If all the baby roosters are raised together with the baby hens - would they continue to be fine as they get older? Or will they start to fight among themselves once they are mature? I've noticed that 1 of the easter egger roosters is a bit more aggressive then the others - so I think I will re-home him for sure. Out of the other 4 - how many is a good number to keep for 20 hens?

Here are pictures of the baby roos - they are about 3 months old now. I don't have a picture of the Olive Egger.

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"Cinnamon queen"

Thanks for your help with this. :)
 
This is a tough situation. I'll try and answer all your questions from my experience and what I have read of others. First Loki may or may not get along with the newbies but chances are he won't. Also there is no sure way of knowing that the new roosters will all like each other, all chickens are individually different. I have had roosters that were inseparable since hatch and others that were brothers that wanted to kill each other. Are you planning on keeping all 5 new roosters? How much room do you have? Keep in mind that you can keep more then one rooster but be sure to have a good hen/rooster ratio and 25/5 isn't the best. I hope this was at least slightly helpful :).
 
I was thinking of keeping 2 or 3 at the most. So I guess the decision is to just keep Loki and give all the others away - or give Loki away and keep a couple of the new roosters. If I give the baby roos away what is a good age to do that?
 
I have 5 roosters and one baby rooster.They do fight,but not all the time. Keeping them would probably be okay,getting rid of 2 or 3 would be better.:welcome:frow
 
depends on the breed, on the individual roo, and how many hens you have. If there are enough hens for all the roos, so they dont feel they hve to fight over them, and if it is a calm, non-aggressive breed, then it is possible. Not a guarantee, but possible. I only allow roosters to breed here if they tolerate free ranging with other oos and do not fight. In fact, my current breeding roos will breed hens in front of eachother, and will rooster next to eachother at night. They are not related (silkie, an EE and a brahma). I just got a few more roos (and hens!) and hope that they do as well.

DO expect some pecking order establishment as they venture into adulthood... but once they have established their places, if they are going to live in peace, they will calm down. If it escalates, you'llhave to find some way to keep the separate or rehome or .... you know.

I have had other roos that fought... they were kept in runs/fenced areas, rehomed or eaten.

good luck
 
Losthorizons said:
I was thinking of keeping 2 or 3 at the most. So I guess the decision is to just keep Loki and give all the others away - or give Loki away and keep a couple of the new roosters. If I give the baby roos away what is a good age to do that?
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Then its really up to you, which would you prefer? I now its hard getting rid of chickens you are attached to. You can give roosters away at anytime, the sooner the better in most cases.
 
What general area are you in? there are some state specific threads here. Also some locations have their own mailing lists /forums (eg: we have a chicago chicken list on google) - so if you expect to have to rehome any, you may want to start posting inquiries. Roo placement can be difficult and take a while to find a potential home- especially if you want to be sure they will stay as pets
 
roosters are a sad problem. the harsh reality is that the vast majority are put down, basically everyone has this problem so rehoming them can be hard and really a short lived solution at best, but sometimes it's just easier to have someone else use them for food and not have to do the deed yourself. there is someone working on bringing a detection device to market that will be able to tell the sex of an egg from day one, allowing the male eggs to be sold off while they are still useful for food.

one thing to keep in mind is the hens. too high a rooster ratio can be hard on the hens. I've seen more than one where the hens loose all their back feather from being mounted too frequently. in fact a friend just came to me asking why her hens never really feathered out on their backs and I asked "how many roosters do you have?". the answer was 2 and that was for about 8 hens. the roosters got along OK but they were too much for the hens. if you are not trying to maintain a breeding program then erring on the lower number side is probably better. I'd choose your favorite rooster and "find new homes" for the rest, knowing that they may very well end up in a stew pot as a practical matter of there being more roosters hatching out every day, into a world where they are already overpopulated. out in the wild, the majority would get eaten by predators, it's just the way of nature.
 
I live in Missouri. Thank you all for the great advice. I'm not planning on a breeding program at this time, so I'll just have to decide who to keep, and give the others away. It was bad luck on our part - we got 4 easter egger chicks and 3 of them were roosters.
 

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