chicken breeding

[rinmpit]

how many hens will 1 rooster fertilize?

 

[Ridgerunner]

That depends on the breed of the rooster, the age, health, vigor, diet, and personality of the rooster. Whether or not the hens cooperate also plays a big part. The general rule of thumb is that a full sized rooster will normally assure 10 to 12 hens are fertile and a bantam rooster will normally assure that 12 to 15 hens are fertile. There are a couple of things to recognize about this.

1. It depends tremendously on the specific rooster. The flock dynamics are all different. Some roosters can't manage these ratios but most can.

2. This says that you can normally assure that all hens are fertile with these ratios. That means that most roosters can and will keep more hens than this fertile but that he may start missing a few when the ratios get too higher. A rooster does not systematically go from hen to hen but seems to mate them randomly whenever the urge hits him. Some hens like to hang close to the rooster while others prefer to roam with their own group further away from the rooster. Some get mated a lot and some get mated a lot less and may occasionally get missed.

Hope this helps. Good luck!