Thank you for the words of encouragement. I'm not even sure where to start. We may sell them at the farmer's market this weekend if we can. Honestly, I feel like we are completely starting over. We now have 3 fully grown hens and two fully grown roosters. The Ameracauna was expected and planned for - along with 10 lovely Australorp hens and Ameracauna hen. Oops! Honestly, though. If someone ate them, I could understand that. And I would much prefer that, over them having a life of abuse at the hands of a cock fighter
So sorry you're going through this! Heartbreaking, and I'm sorry this happened to you guys.
BTW if the pics you guys have posted is all the chickens you have, you only have one Australorp hen. The other one that looks similar but has curling tail feathers is a slow developing cockerel /male. You also have one female lavender Ameracauna. If you keep a male Australorp, I'd keep one of the ones that has a fully developed comb and wattles already (also that gives you space/respect, although that could change anywhere between 5-12 months of age once hormones hit). If you keep a rooster that was quick to develop, he may pass this along to his kids, and that will make them easier to ID male/female sooner as chicks.
If you have 3 roos, and you keep them confined all the time due to predators, you'll need three separate coops with 3 separate sets of ladies. The juvenile males will get along until puberty hits around 5-6 months or so (could get along longer, but don't count on it), and then they may start to fight. I've got two 3+ month males together right now, because one of my coops broke, and I figure I've got a month or so to fix it before there will be issues. If they are raised together and you want them to get along (and they do), don't separate them until they are going to be separated permanently. And make sure they have enough space in their coop/run to get away from each other while they're growing up.
You can use chicken wire to subdivide a secure run to separate males/females or use it to separate flocks. If the cockerels start to pester the ladies, you can pen them together away from the ladies (bachelor pad) until there are issues between the cockerels, to give the cockerels and females time to grow up. You can put one cockerel in a really large wire pet crate (48"x32" floor space) so it is inside the secure run, but won't get picked on by the other cockerel, as a temporary measure while you finish your third coop, if you need to pen the males together, and they're starting to fight. You can cover portions of the wire pet crate with hardware cloth, or zip tie house wrap/old feed bags to create a sheltered area and put the plastic crate bottom tray on top of the crate to protect from sun. The crate can share wood chips in the run with the rest of the run. You can stake the crate in place if needed with 12" landscape stakes, and/or put a paving stone on top.
I think you have a lot of options for the future, but first will need to sell/rehome the cockerels. I'd do it as quickly as possible so you can start to heal and look to the future. Do your best to find good homes for them, but you can't control other peoples' choices, so don't beat yourself up about it. So sorry you're going through this.
I raised a batch of 12 roosters a few months ago, and was planning to eat them, but when it came down to it I sold them instead. At least one of them went to a home and became a flock rooster, so I have hope that a couple of them made it. I was reimbursed the cost of raising them, and then some, and didn't have to take the time to process them, or process roosters I'd become attached to, so it worked out. Focusing on the new chicks and the sweet hens helped me not be so sad.
Sending you supportive thoughts.
