Growing out Roosters

[mraymond]

New rooster mom here. We have been hatching out eggs this year to increase our flock, we will be keeping one rooster with the girls but the others we will grow out and cull for meat. My question is this, if we build a grow out pen for the roosters and have various age roosters together, separated from the hens by wire fencing, will we have issues with them fighting each other due to the hens being in close proximity, as the girls free range during the day so chances are they'll be close by at times . We do plan on culling them once they hit the correct age per breed. I'm trying to figure out if this will work without tons of rooster fights. Any and all advice welcome please. Picture of my huge baby Orphingtons just cause it's cute lol

 

[aart]

We do plan on culling them once they hit the correct age per breed.

...and how old is that?

I slaughter cockerels at about 14wks to avoid your conundrum.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I raise my chicks all together, at about 6 weeks to 8 weeks, I put the roosters in the flock with my hens. (Free roaming in large fenced area.) Then the hens can teach'm lessons. This also gives the girl chicks a chance to grow away from roosters chicks.
I think they become gentlemen because of the hen's teachings. They also end up liking me more because I am nice.

 

[samanthaoverton]

I just put the extra boys with each other in a mobile and make sure they're not right up on the hens. I move the mobile regularly. Sometimes they get along good if they were hatched together as long as they're not near the hens. Plus i dont have them long so mobile has been the way for me so far. I intend to have my oblivious hubby build me another coop and fenced area for meat birds but so far I just do extra roosters so the mobile has been fine. There's a lot of ways to do this..Im just saying what I do..

 

[fluffycrow]

Well it all depends on how you define the right age for every breed

 

[JedJackson]

Put tarps or boards on their enclosure. Three feet up should do it. However, it's still no guarantee they won't fight. That's just the nature of the beast. But younger boys tend to have less serious fights than older ones.

 

[Mrs. K]

You really don't want them to get too old. And this is not going to be KFC type chicken. As problems occur- well that is when the culling starts. 16 weeks is about right for dual purpose breeds.

Meat birds are about half that at 8 weeks - and they will be more KFC fried chicken.

Mrs K

 

[imacowgirl2]

As I hatch out birds, the roosters go into the bachelor pad as soon as I can tell they are roosters, usually around 5-6 weeks…I make sure I’m always adding two at a time, preferably 3 or more, and (so far) it hasn’t caused issues, mostly because I think the older roosters don’t see them as a threat since they’re so small and very willing to run away from the larger roosters. My extras get culled either when they start causing problems or around 15 weeks. I also very intentionally built a very large bachelor pad, to allow plenty of room to get away from each other, which I believe is absolutely essential to any kind of success.

 

[Ridgerunner]

if we build a grow out pen for the roosters and have various age roosters together, separated from the hens by wire fencing, will we have issues with them fighting each other due to the hens being in close proximity,

I raise my cockerels and pullets with the main flock in an area over 3,000 square feet and butcher the cockerels between 16 weeks and 23 weeks. Some of the boys do fight some but nobody gets hurt so I don't see the problem. Every three or four years it gets rough enough that I separate several boys out into a coop and pen area to isolate them. That's right next to the rest of the flock, including pullets and hens, and I haven't had a problem with them fighting each other. Sometimes the pullets set across the fence from the boys. What I mean by rough enough is usually the boys going after the girls but one time the dominant rooster and a couple of the cockerels were going after each other pretty strongly.

There are people I trust on here that have said they do have problems if the girls are in sight. I can't give you guarantees one way or the other, like practically everything else to do with chickens, it depends. You can try it and see what happens. It might work or you might need to try something else. And I agree with Imacowgirl2, more room is good.