Can roosters live together?

[rooster brandon.]

Can you keep 3 buff orpington roosters and 3 ameracana roosters together in the same pen there 8 months old?

 

[Jane Jill Jack]

My roosters started fighting at a very young age, just when they got all their feathers, of course nothing was very bloody until they were close to a year old.

 

[kathyinmo]

It works best if they were raised together. But, yes, you can keep them together. I have a pen of roosters currently, but only 4. In the past I had 2 pens of 10 roosters in each pen. For the most part they did okay. Better if they can not see the hens.

 

[cochinfan]

I have an EE rooster and a Houdan rooster that live together in my barn. They are never apart and I've never seen them fight. I have about nine young bantams and I think about 6 of them are roosters. They arae integrating very well. I plan on moving the bantams hens to live with my big hens in the spring. I enjoy having the roosters in my barn!

 

[justtoni44]

I can only speak from my own experience .
We have 8 roo's...4, 6 month old and the rest full grown
I have not had a problem.there is a pecking order of course..........
but other than seeing the young ones flare at each other ocasionally, they all get along.
Maybe I am just lucky.they also have a lot of room.

Our main rooster has a favorite roo just over a year old.
I swear he took him under wing and has passed on his great rooster traits.
The two if them stand gaurd and watch for hawks and preditors together.
call the girls for treats together ect.
They are so much fun.

Good luck

 

[henney penny]

Yes you can as long as there are no hens around

 

[A.T. Hagan]

It does work better if they were raised together. They'll have long since settled the pecking order.

But you can put grown birds together that are strangers to each other. It'll work better if you can put a lot of them in at once. Adding a single bird to a larger number of cock birds is asking to have the snot beat out of him.

Some birds integrate better than others. Yesterday I sorted out two flocks of roosters into the ones I wanted to keep and those who are moving out. Lots of fussing and squawking going on, but they will eventually settle down. I do have one stubborn one that is asking for a neck stretch because he just won't quit and doesn't realize that easter egger roosters aren't as valuable as Maran birds.

One thing that I have found that helps is to put all the new birds into the roost house at first light then shut the door. The established birds get locked out all day and the new birds are locked in. They can see and fuss at each other all day through the wire but can't do any harm. Right at good dark when all that any of them are thinking about is hitting the roost I'll open the door and let them in. Come the morning I let them all out together. There will be some inevitable fighting, but not quite so much as there would have been if I'd just tossed the new ones into the pen.

When I had just one or two birds to integrate I'd put them in a large cage inside the rooster pen for a week or so. They'd all see and interact with each other during that time, but could not get at one another. After the week was up I'd put the new birds in the roost house with the old birds right at dark so they'd spend all night on the roost with each other. Come the morning there is still some squabbling but it seems to be less than it would have been otherwise.

Unless the newcomer is clearly superior to the birds in the established flock I've never found any way to eliminate the fighting. It can usually be minimized, but nothing I've tried or heard of has ever eliminated it.

 

[onthespot]

When I can, I try to run two roos per breeding pen, if there are enough girls and the boys get along. I like it for genetic diversity as well as for backup if one dies. Usually one is the boss and the other one stays out of his way, but breeds hens when the other one is not looking, LOL. I have two javas right now, two lav orps, two olive eggers, and two roos in my barred olive egger pen and a copper black and copper blue in my Bev Davis marans pen. The flocks vary from around six to a dozen hens. I have extra roos for my silkie pen, but I want one roo to breed hens for now, so the extra roos are together, but off to the side. All the pens are separated only by chain link, so the roos can all see each other and get used to being in close proximity to other roosters and not fighting. Plus I only keep gentle roosters. (Well, there are a couple sour grapes, but they are ones I really need, LOL)

 

[bobbi-j]

I have 6 Brahma roosters in a pen together, and they get along just fine. They are approximately a year old.

 

[rooster brandon.]

well then this should work real good because they were raised together and theres no hen for 50 or 60 feet they cant see or hear them......