That's a bit older than I expected. By now they should be past the worst of their juvenile hormone rush and acting more like mature roosters. I would have expected one or more to have challenged your dominant rooster for overall flock dominance. It is expected that they will try to mate with your mature hens. With my flock when that happens the hens usually run to the mature rooster and he scares the cockerels away.
Sometimes cockerels and roosters will fight to the death to be flock master. Sometimes they reach an accommodation and work together. It sounds like your 8-month-olds are working together but the competition between them is fueling excesses. That competition is probably what is causing them to act more like immature cockerels.
Yes, 15 older hens, the oldest of them being 4 years give or take.
When pullets start laying they stop acting like immature chicks and start acting more like mature hens. It sounds like your mature rooster has plenty of mature hens already so he is not interested in them. The three starting laying could spark some other behavioral changes though.
We bought a dozen chicks (5 Blue Cochins, 5 Golden Comets, and 2 White Crested Black Polish), then raised them to where they are now, and it looks like: 3 Cochin roosters and 2 hens, all the Comets appear to be hens (yay) and 1 of each Polish: A rooster named Beethoven and a hen named Phyllis. The chicks we bought are about 5 months old and doing very well.
The Comets are sex linked so they should all be girls if that is what you ordered. They others are typically unsexed, especially if bantams. If the Cochin or Polish are full-sized and were vent sexed they should have done better than that.
Many people see the mating act as sexual, about fertilizing eggs. That's a minor function and often not appropriate. The mating act is often much more about dominance. The one on top is dominating the one on the bottom. With mature hens and roosters that is often willingly on the girls' part. A good mature rooster should dominate based on personality and magnificence, not force. A weak rooster and immature cockerels usually cannot do that, they often have to dominate by physical force. The hens do not respect them enough to squat for them.
It is not just the girls that are dominated this way. A male mounting a male is also an act of dominance. I have not seen it much but occasionally a male will mount another male, all the way to include touching vents, as an act of dominance. Sometimes by force but surprisingly, sometimes willingly. I'll admit I did not expect it to be willingly when I first saw it. I think that is what is going on with your 8-month-olds and your younger cockerels. They are not weird or bent, they are just dominating. I suspect a lot of that is fueled by the competition between them.
All the chickens live in a repurposed barn stall that's built like Fort Knox. Just one coop, and they free-range. We have about 3 1/2 acres for them to use, but they tend to stick around the barn. However, lately the chicks have been spending time in one of our gardens that's not in use because we spotted a fox on our property a few days ago.
I honestly have no idea how big the coop is, but it's big enough for what we have and more.
Maybe it is big enough, maybe not. Integration, especially with juveniles, generally takes a lot more room than after they are mature and integrated. I suspect them free-ranging instead of being cooped in a run together has helped immensely. Where do these behaviors take place, in the coop or outside? That might help determine if your coop is big enough.
I suspect they are not all sleeping on the main roosts together. Mine do not until they reach a certain maturity level. Usually with mine the pullets move to the main roosts about when they start to lay. With cockerels many different things could happen.
We really only keep males for protection (We've had major problems with foxes before - the more protection the better
) and fertilizing eggs. (Also I looooove the sound of a rooster crowing)
You definitely need a rooster or two with those goals. There is a debate on this forum about the role roosters play in protection. Some people believe a rooster will willingly sacrifice his life to protect his hens. Some do but I'm more in the camp that a rooster is a good early warning system, especially for flying predators, and is more likely to try to lead his flock to safety than fight off a predator while they escape.
This is the dominant flock master. Some subordinate roosters will help with flock protection but some are no better than the hens. If they are in a gang competing with each other they are more likely to pay attention to each other and less likely to pay attention to potential predators. More is not always better.
I want the roosters to learn that the chicks are off-limits (at least for now) and learn to not gang up on the hens.
That is instinctive behavior. Sorry but they are not human.
About the bachelor pad: to take care of the problem for the moment we've been just putting the roosters in another out-of-use garden all day when I get the chickens out every morning. They can see the hens and talk to them but can't actually do anything. I leave one of them out, however, to interact with the hens and be another guard. His name's Cornelius, by the way. He seems to be more trust-worthy than his siblings (more, not completely) though he still can't tell the difference between adult hen and young Cochin cockerel yet. His siblings being locked up only keeps him from being able to gang up on a hen; he still chases them a little too much. I'm hoping eventually he'll learn that if the hen runs, it's not a good time to mate.
Having only one out is probably a good idea. Chasing the hens too much is a sign of a cockerel, not a mature rooster. "Too much" is a human perception.
As I said earlier, I've thought about culling. I don't like it, but I've thought about it.
As I said earlier, to cull means to select. You may select them to pen them up, sell or give them away, or eat them.
If you pen them up they can't protect the rest of the flock. Do you really meet your goals by that?
Dad had a free-ranging flock of 25 to 30 hens and one rooster. He hatched out a bunch of chicks every year, most of the eggs were fertile. That flock did not stay in one tight bunch around the dominant rooster. Broody hens were separated with their chicks. A few hens would stick pretty close to the rooster but many would form their own cliques and wander away from the rooster. They stayed in the general vicinity of the coop but were spread out so much he gave limited protection. I don't know what you are seeing, each flock has its own dynamics. With that gang of boys around the hen may be sticking closer to the rooster for his protection from them.
Do not consider any of this as facts. Each of us have different experiences. These are my opinions, mainly based on my observations with a limited number of flocks over the years in specific situations. With Dad's flock and mine we ate the boys before they got this old.
Good luck!
I'll answer them in order from first to last:
