Do I need to get rid of the boys?

[Mavrik]

While I've had chickens for years, I'm new to having roosters, one year now. The roosters are tearing the hens up. Two hens have skin exposed (wings and backs) and starting to bleed. I have 8 hens and two roosters (9 chicks in the brooder). Only one rooster mates, this one kicks butt if the other tries. I have saddles/wing protectors on them but it doesn't do any good and I'm finding increasing damage to the other hens.

Is there a way to curb the mating or do I need to rehome the boys?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Since both roos aren't mating (usually I have read a good roo to hen ratio is 1:8 or 1:10), I'd consider making a bachelor pen for the boys to give the girls a rest. You can put them in a dog kennel with a hutch or some such setup if you wish to keep them. Otherwise I'd definitely consider rehoming the alpha roo. Maybe the underling will be more of a gentleman with his 8 ladies. Not all roos are going to overmate the ladies!

Another alternative if you like roosters is to keep banty roos in with large fowl hens. They can be aggressive to people (just like some large fowl roosters) depending upon the breed, but for example- cochins and brahmas have a rep for being sweet roos.

From my experience the large fowl ladies sometimes will accept a banty roo and allow him to mate, and other times will shun him as if to say, you are way too short for me!

 

[PSJ]

Since both roos aren't mating (usually I have read a good roo to hen ratio is 1:8 or 1:10), I'd consider making a bachelor pen for the boys to give the girls a rest. You can put them in a dog kennel with a hutch or some such setup if you wish to keep them. Otherwise I'd definitely consider rehoming the alpha roo. Maybe the underling will be more of a gentleman with his 8 ladies. Not all roos are going to overmate the ladies!


X 2!!