Does my roo have too many hens?

[gritsar]

they'reHISchickens :

This roo was elevated to head boss because #1 was nasty and found a stew pot.
So, has anyone found correlation between a secondary roo and how well he steps up to the plate?
I thought he was doing well with his original ladies. They were a tight bunch and he looked out for them. What upsets me is that he is leaving out some of his old gals and not the same ones each time. We do a head count before locking up each night.

How long has he been #1 roo. When I re-homed my former alpha, it took about a month before #2 stepped up and made the ladies behave. They were real resistant to him being in charge, but finally accepted it.​

 

[they'reHISchickens]

He's been in charge of the old gals for almost a year. His offspring had 2 sibling roos with them til mid December but they were all in the same coop since they were hatched.
I thought he was a good roo, but these last weeks have made me wonder!
I even took him off the roost last evening and brought him out to the area to his "lost sheep." They went to him and talked a bit, then he casually walked across the snow and went back into the coop, leaving them alone- again. It was like: Hey, my feet are cold, I'm going in to bed. Goodbye!
They did eventually make their way across the snow into the coop-- about 20 minutes later. I am sure he was cozy between his girls and fast asleep by then!
I need to hatch a batch, and then find another studmuffin for the girls.

 

[6chix]

My 9 year old roo keeps his flock tight when they freerange. I moved a couple younger hens in with him and his other 5 girls, within 2 weeks he had them under control. he must have some sort of magic

 

[woolychicken]

I have 1 roo for 18 hens he does very well with all of them he keeps everyone in line.
i wish he did'nt play the favortie game since a few of my gals look a little overworked.

He has old and young alike,i have raised him since he was an egg.

i do known when the new gals have come in it takes some tiime for them to get with the program,
he will be after them untill he is the king
or a least he think he is

 

[Akane]

My standard roo couldn't keep track of 1 hen.

He's pretty useless for that. They quit listening to him because he kept telling them to do the wrong thing. He also abandoned them all and ran to the coop when a dog attacked. All but one of my bantam hens made it to the coop and the roos died trying. That roo was the only surviving roo but not a single one of his hens was in the coop. I found them scattered across the yard with most dead and all but 2 injured. A roo is not needed to put hens away. They will do that even if they don't have a rooster or don't follow the roo. Even when I have a good roo in the flock I expect the newly added hens to get lost at first because they aren't part of the flock and they don't know where to go. I haven't noticed any difference in adding a younger roo except that it may be the next year before any chicken including a roo settles their place in a new flock. Even with chickens that were hatched together if you take the top bird out it can take months for the rest to resettle the order.

Also when selecting for a nonagressive roo it can be hard not to take out the traits you want. A roo that protects his flock and gets them where they need to go is also likely to try to protect it against you and there's a fine line before they become over aggressive. A roo that covers lots of hens well in one flock may be too much in a smaller flock where the hens could get mated too frequently. Odds are you aren't going to get a perfect roo. You will have to live with some faults. I keep my standard roo because I don't want a huge aggressive roo with spurs as long as my hand to contend with. I'd rather he was worthless aside from fertilized eggs. The guineas can sound the alarm for the hens instead and the hens never fail to put themselves to bed except new additions to the coop. With my bantams though I tend not to keep the roos that are like that because there isn't as much reason to worry about going too far the other way and the bantams are more susceptible to predators. I'd rather they kept track of them and got them out of danger even if it means I occasionally have to put one in it's place for trying to protects his hens from me.