Finding a rooster who won’t harass and scratch up the hens

[juniperz]

Bigger roosters do cause less damage even if the hens are small.
My big guy has zero feather damage on his hens which range in size from as big as himself to nearly bantam.
My smaller guy Jerry is opposite because he has to do more feet work just to do the deed.
He is improving his technique as he ages which is great because that is his only flaw.
The big guy Prince is a Faverolles, a gentle giant and Jerry is a mix of Faverolles and some kind of weird bantam mix that jumped the fence.

Interesting, that's the opposite experience of the first few posters!

Also usually works out better raising a younger male with older hens.
They tend to knock knots on him before he gets completely mature so by the time he does he has learned some manners.

Sadly this has never prevented the problem in my flock.

 

[Shezadandy]

Interesting, that's the opposite experience of the first few posters!


Sadly this has never prevented the problem in my flock.

My smallest roo (Mortimer, an accidental fellow) is an excellent rooster, but it is painful watching him try to mate anything bigger than a leghorn. He's not a bad guy, actually he's very nice. The problem comes when he can't .... reach and pulls on the back of the head/neck while he persists. Yep. The more difficult it is for them to manage the deed, the harder it can be on the girls, because of course they've got their ... job ... to do and will continue until they've succeeded.

Despite his size issue and horrendous crow, he means no harm to the hens (or people) and does a marvelous job keeping everyone in line - training my younger roos and keeping them on a short leash. All a hen has to do is make the tiniest protest and he will magically appear, knocking the offender- who may be twice his size- right off.

And really so much just comes down to the particular rooster. On the opposite edge of the spectrum - I had my old fella in with just 3 females (too many related females in the main flock) and though he mated them regularly and was in excess of 10lbs, not one of the 3 ever had a feather out of place.

Also - Sometimes the hens just don't have the best feathers and will show a lot more wear under identical circumstances. Those are the ones that get the hen saddles.