Follow up question to males fighting...

[MacMamaof4]

I posted yesterday about finding a bloody male in my coop. He seems to be doing well, but then this morning I found a second.

I also caught the bully- in addition to trying to scalp another male, he was pecking hard at all of the females.

For now I have removed the other injured male as well as the bully- other than these three I have only one male left with 17 females in my 14x2 ground cage.

Here's my question- do I have a better chance at a peaceful flock in 28sf if I just cull these three boys and leave the one male with 17 females? I'm only in this for eggs- ideally they'd be fertile so we can incubate later, but it's easy for me to get fertile eggs nearby so that's not a big deal.

 

[Kale the Quail]

I posted yesterday about finding a bloody male in my coop. He seems to be doing well, but then this morning I found a second.

I also caught the bully- in addition to trying to scalp another male, he was pecking hard at all of the females.

For now I have removed the other injured male as well as the bully- other than these three I have only one male left with 17 females in my 14x2 ground cage.

Here's my question- do I have a better chance at a peaceful flock in 28sf if I just cull these three boys and leave the one male with 17 females? I'm only in this for eggs- ideally they'd be fertile so we can incubate later, but it's easy for me to get fertile eggs nearby so that's not a big deal.

do you have another cage to separate at least one of the males in so that when he gets better he can live there with 2/3 females. I'd keep one of them, just in case the bully male is just really mean. I've had a bully male scalp one of my females. If you culled the other three males you'd be left with the one you have now. Better to cull the un injured male and keep 1 or 2 of the injured ones. This is just what I would do though. @Nabiki probably has a better solution

 

[Nabiki]

If all you want are eggs, you don't need to keep any roos at all. If you want fertile eggs, the best option would be to divide space into 3 and have 1 roo with his own harem in each section.

 

[MacMamaof4]

I'd rather not start another cage- this is the setup I have now. It would be possible to split the entire thing in half with a divider (each would be 14sf) if that would make everyone happier. I could do a male with 7 or 8 females on each side... but again, fertility isn't very important. I'd just like to keep at least one make because I love the sound of their crows.

 

[MacMamaof4]

I'd rather not start another cage- this is the setup I have now. It would be possible to split the entire thing in half with a divider (each would be 14sf) if that would make everyone happier. I could do a male with 7 or 8 females on each side... but again, fertility isn't very important. I'd just like to keep at least one make because I love the sound of their crows.

 

[MacMamaof4]

sorry- something went wrong there- my photo didn't load and it double-posted.


I think I'll just keep the one male since I don't really need any- but I do really like the idea of a backup male so maybe I'll keep one of these injured males as well. Thank you all for your help!

 

[Nabiki]

You probably already know this, but if you're going to keep two, don't keep the bully. The other two might get along without him, they might not.

 

[MacMamaof4]

You probably already know this, but if you're going to keep two, don't keep the bully. The other two might get along without him, they might not.

He's first on the chopping block. I'm still undecided about the two injured- they seem like chill dudes.

 

[MacMamaof4]

I culled the bully and then went out to inspect the injured- the one from this morning was missing an eye, didn't want to stand, and looking in pretty bad shape, so I culled him too. The scalped guy from yesterday is running around, eating, and crowing, so I'm going to let him keep recovering and hope the two males can get along before I resort to killing any more.

 

[Fenrisulfr]

As I wrote in your previous thead, there might be the possibility that there is a hen being the bully.
I have a flock, which is meanwhile hen only and on the weekend I had an other injured hen, I needed to seperate.
When I am watching them, none of them does any attack. Sneaky little girls.

In my experience hens can be much more mean than roos.