Can two roosters live together peacefully?

[hokankai]

Even one roo and three hens is pushing it. Those hens are going to be mated with a LOT. I don't like to go under 10 hens per rooster.

 

[stone_family3]

Drats, The Partridge Cochin will he get as big as the barred cross?

 

[jnkir7]

it depends on your rooster, temperment i have a buff orpington that does not mind me putting new roosters in , he just has some hens he wont let them breed with, and some he doesnt care. hes a very good rooster. janie

 

[nancyks53]

OK, I need help. My daughter is giving me 3 hens. There is a roo that I can take or not take. He is americauna, as is one hen. The other two hens are buff orpingtons. I'd like to get a buff o. roo so we can raise meat as well as have eggs. If I take the americauna roo, who is an adult, will he get along with a new baby buff o. roo? We are on 20 acres so they will all have space. Will that help? I'm clueless; have never had chickens before but look forward to it.

 

[hokankai]

You'll want to start a new topic, that way your question will be answered and more people will see it

 

[nancyks53]

OK, thanks. Not sure how to do that but I'll try!

 

[vegitarian]

NO!!! I got 5 chicks and two turned out to be roosters. They were raised together so i figured they could live together. Sometimes they would fight but i thought they would be fine together... but i was wrong. One morning as i went out to feed them i found one of them dead. The other rooster had killed it. Even with hens being with them they still would fight. Though my uncle has many roosters running around together in the yard and they dont fight much. Sometimes they will fight but never anything to bad. I would not recommend keeping two roosters in the same pen together....even with hens

 

[LTygress]

NO!!! I got 5 chicks and two turned out to be roosters. They were raised together so i figured they could live together. Sometimes they would fight but i thought they would be fine together... but i was wrong. One morning as i went out to feed them i found one of them dead. The other rooster had killed it.

I would actually look at other possible causes for this. Everything from an illness to a wandering cat. I've had problems with foxes in a subdivision I used to live in, snakes, cats, raccoons, and even a hawk.

Usually when they are raised together, they will have no problem. Yes, they may fight over hens, but they establish a pecking order and that's what they live by.

The problem with keeping roosters together isn't so much how bad they fight amongst each other, but how bad they tear up the hens. I adopted four mixed-breed bantam hens a few months ago, and NONE of them had tail feathers. They were also missing plenty of feathers around their necks. The roosters that they were living with had just pulled the feathers out so much, in an attempt to mate with them.

I brought them back and placed the four hens with two bantam roos - one frizzle, one mille fleur. They have since grown their tail feathers back and their necks are mostly covered again. And even at the 2:1 ratio.... they made it worse by going broody after just a month of being here! That kept the roosters from breeding at all! But everybody was still okay. And they all live together in a giant 25ft by 17ft pen with a netted top.

However... placing a BABY rooster with a full-grown flock will likely get the baby killed, no matter what. You need to add them when they are similar in size. If you add an adult to a flock, he'll fight with the existing roo for a while, but with 20 acres, you have space for him to get away and that should be fine. Eventually, he'll blend in with the main flock. But unless you keep them all separate, your hens are likely to lay mixed-breed eggs anyway.

 

[Beekissed]

I've never had a baby rooster....or any babies, for that matter, killed by an adult flock. Been keeping all ages together for years without seeing any killing of one bird by another...not sure what kind of vicious birds you all are raising but I've raised many different breeds in mixed flocks..never seen such as you all describe.