Can you keep 2 roosters.

[Mother Therese]

hi, I have 5 chickens. 6 weeks old. One is a black austrolorp cockerel, he is the alpha and is very sweet and docile. One, I believe to be an easter egger, it is too young for me to tell if it is male or female. however it occasionally gets in the face of the austrolorp cockerel in the yard, none of the others do. so i suspect it of being male.what would you think of this behavior? Has anyone kept 2 roosters in such a small flock???
The reason i want both is I really like the Australorp, and the EE is my son's personal chicken, so i can't break his heart.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

hi, I have 5 chickens. 6 weeks old. One is a black austrolorp cockerel, he is the alpha and is very sweet and docile. One, I believe to be an easter egger, it is too young for me to tell if it is male or female. however it occasionally gets in the face of the austrolorp cockerel in the yard, none of the others do. so i suspect it of being male.what would you think of this behavior? Has anyone kept 2 roosters in such a small flock???
The reason i want both is I really like the Australorp, and the EE is my son's personal chicken, so i can't break his heart.

I would suggest posting pictures of your birds in the "what breed/gender" forum - at 6 weeks you are likely to get some pretty solid feedback on the two suspected roos, especially the EE.
That being said - in such a small flock, two roos is asking for trouble.

 

[Mountain Peeps]

There is a rule that you should keep one roo every 1-10 hens but I think if they were raised together, they can get along fine. Plus your breeds are friendly breeds.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Aggression is only one of the issues to consider - with two roosters and only three hens, there is the issue of pretty heaving over "attention" to the hens by the roosters.

 

[Mother Therese]

Do you know about what age the trouble starts? I don't want to get rid of my austrolorp unless i'm sure the EE is a roo.

 

[jennyg]

My Rosie, RIR Rooster started crowing at 10 weeks and started "humping" at 15 weeks. I adopted 4 pullets (4 breeds) and RIR turned into a Roo and we added two more pullets, one got eaten by my dog last week. And I added two grown RIR hens (18 months) we had NO problems adding to the flock. He started humping this week, (we rehomed him do to renting and he woke my toddlers at 4 am, staying away, for the past month) I would guess thats when the trouble would start. imo that is way to small of a flock for 2 roos .... I was always told 1 roo per 8-10 to keep the roo busy enough to not cause too much stress on hens and if you own more than one roo, thats the number they wont fight