Can roosters live in side-by-side pens?

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

None were lead rooster in the bachelor pad. That was a Barred Rock gentleman named Colonel (my husband sick sense of humor) who never attack and was very polite to his hens. What we did is once cockerels got to be several months old we placed them in the bachelor pen to keep Colonel our lead roo and the ladies from being molested by the teenage hooligans. The only Roos that raised their hackles were the one Rhodebar that was in a separate pen with his hatch sibling. When Colonel would walk by the pen with the ladies both Colonel and (I called him Elvis) would look aggressive. (Never any physical altercations because of the fencing, though they may have went at it if it were not there.). I believe the common issue is hens being around multiple roosters. We would let the boys out to forage separate from our hens. Most Roos would go up to the runs where the ladies were and hang out initially. Once the ladies showed no interest they moved on to forage. When we lost Colonel we put Sir Eddie (Birchen Maran) in with the ladies and he too was a real gentleman but the ladies were disinterested in him but respectful. We have 14 barred rocks in the incubator that is to hatch next week. We are hoping to not only get hens to breed with a Welsummer rooster but hoping we can get another gentle giant like Colonel.

Colonel sounds like a good boy. I hope you get another like him. I really do like most roosters, and wish I could keep more of them.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

I tried a bachelor pen. There was occasional fights, and roosters mating roosters. Adding new ones didn't go well as they were chased and mated relentlessly. We just started putting the older ones in the freezer.

I had good luck penning pairs and trios of compatible roosters long term without problems, and other times it didn't work long term.

So what you’re saying is… maybe it will… maybe it won’t

 

[The Birb King]

Mine do......they still try to fight though

 

[FrostRanger]

So what you’re saying is… maybe it will… maybe it won’t

Pretty much. There's no telling if it'll work with your individual birds or not. Just have a plan b in case it doesn't

 

[McChooky]

I raised 2 roosters but I'm only keeping 1 so I separated them.They don't fight thru the wire so I just use chicken wire.It depends on how bad they want to fight.Mine should be gone this week.I look forward to my flock having the whole run again when I get rid of him

 

[McChooky]

I know this may be somewhat specific rooster to rooster. But can they share a fence? If not, how much space is recommended between fences?

I currently have 2 flocks but am adding more. When my second flock started up, they were in a temporary set up next to the main flock. Temporary turned into longer than planned and I had 2 roosters fighting side-by-side.

The pens had approximately 14-18” of space between them. There was lots of eyeballing, but they only attacked the fence during moments of excitement- a reluctant hen squawking to escape a roo- or first thing in the morning when they were super hormonal.

When the 2 flock were let out to “free” range (big flock in large backyard, little flock in large front yard), the roosters would fight through the fence. The fence is a wire garden fence, the kind with maybe 3x4” ish grids.

The flocks had plenty of space to avoid each other and not even see each other, but the roosters often fought at the fence and would scratch their legs up on the fence.

We’re currently planning a group of breeding pens. We’ve been planning them around the idea that roosters can’t share a fence and will need either visual blocks or space between runs.

When I look at pictures of breeding pens online, it seems common to have a dog kennel style set up with multiple runs going side by side.

So what gives? Are my 2 roosters just particularly contentious, and maybe my future roos will ignore each other? I don’t want my roosters spending all day trying to fight the neighboring roo, but it sure would be easier to build these pens if they could be side by side.

Out of sight out of mind! Breeding pens with hardware cloth along the sides works 2nd best

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

Mine do......they still try to fight though

Is it all the time or just when they somehow irritate each other? Have they ever hurt themselves? One of my roosters broke his spur in half last fall. I don’t know if it was due to fence fighting or not, but it seemed the most obvious cause.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

Pretty much. There's no telling if it'll work with your individual birds or not. Just have a plan b in case it doesn't

Our current plan is to do 2 pairs of side by side pens for a total of 4 spaces. They will be caddy-corner to each other. So 2 runs directly side by side, 2 runs will be able to see each other but have space between them, and the 2 outer most runs will barely be able to see each other. At the moment I only have plans for 2 sets of breeding trios, so they will go in the outer most pens. The others will be empty or grow outs or who knows. This will give us maximum flexibility I think.

Somehow plan B always ends up with me getting more chickens, so it’s sometimes worse than plan A, lol!

 

[The Birb King]

Is it all the time or just when they somehow irritate each other? Have they ever hurt themselves? One of my roosters broke his spur in half last fall. I don’t know if it was due to fence fighting or not, but it seemed the most obvious cause.

No its only sometimes, and they can't hurt each other through the fence. If the spurs became too long I would trim them.