Help with roosters injuring hens

[Bweis13]

Hello, chicken people! I would love some advice. I’ve read some things on here about roosters injuring hens, but I guess I just need some more information. We have two really big roosters (one buff orpington and one Easter egger who was supposed to be a hen... yeah, we know how that goes.) We have eight hens... buffs, Easter Eggers, and black sex link. All are of a decent size. Most of our hens are beat up, and two have deep wounds under their wings. (They each have one only one deep wound thankfully.) We have cleaned the wounds and put chicken saddles on them to protect their backs and to allow the wounds to heal, but now I’m worried about the other hens. Some are obviously the favorites of the roos and are missing more feathers, but what mostly concerns me are the deep wounds. I can’t tell which rooster is causing the damage, and it could be both. I feel like such a bad chicken mom!

Aside from putting saddles on the hens, is there something else we can do? Do we need to trim the toenails or spurs of the roosters, and will that stop the deep cuts? Also, after the feathers grow back, will the hens just lose them again because of the roosters if we remove the saddles?

I’ve kept all kinds of chickens for over a decade, and I’ve never had this problem before. (My last roo was a very sweet buff orpington who never caused any trouble.) I don’t know if the roosters are competing or if it’s just one of them causing the damage. I felt so bad when I went to put the saddles on the hens who were missing feathers and saw that two were deeply injured! Is this normal?

I can re-home one or both of the roosters with my brother, but I really like them and would like to keep them if possible. Has anyone had any luck in a situation like this? I’m hoping my girls won’t constantly have to wear saddles after their feathers grow in, but I’m willing to lose the roos if my girls are going to suffer these injuries or be stuck in saddles year round.

MAIN QUESTION: Is it the roosters’ toenails or spurs that are cutting my hens, and will trimming them fix the problem? Any advice would be helpful! Thanks.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

I think one of the issues here is the amount of hens to rooster ratio, I think it supposed to be 8-10 hens per rooster, and right now you're at 1:4, is it possible for you to get some more hens? If not it might be better to pick your favorite rooster and send the other off to your brothers :'(

Trimming toenails might help a little bit, although to keep it smooth you'd probably need to sand it or use a dremel (cutting chicken nails with just regular cutters tends to make them a little sharp for a while until they free-range-wear-them-down in my experience! Not much of an issue except for this particular situation) but even dremel-ing them might not help the overall issue of them overbreeding the ladies

 

[Bweis13]

I think one of the issues here is the amount of hens to rooster ratio, I think it supposed to be 8-10 hens per rooster, and right now you're at 1:4, is it possible for you to get some more hens? If not it might be better to pick your favorite rooster and send the other off to your brothers :'(

Trimming toenails might help a little bit, although to keep it smooth you'd probably need to sand it or use a dremel (cutting chicken nails with just regular cutters tends to make them a little sharp for a while until they free-range-wear-them-down in my experience! Not much of an issue except for this particular situation) but even dremel-ing them might not help the overall issue of them overbreeding the ladies

Thank you so much for your reply! I’ve never had two big roosters together like this. One was actually ordered to be a hen, but I haven’t had much luck with sexing in the past, so I’m not surprised. We got two roos from the BO straight run chicks we got, and my brother got one of those already, so at least I’m down to only two roos. It may just be time to ship one off. How to decide! It may take a while to be able to deliver the roo to my brother too since he doesn’t live very close. (Sigh.) At least the really beat up ladies now have saddles. I found some really good ones from Down Under Outdoors that really seem to do the trick! I bought one with elastic to go around the wings for a similar price, and it stayed on less then a day.

I think I have a dremmel somewhere... if not I know I have an emery board or sanding block. My chooks don’t get to free range because our farm is on a highway, and I’ve seen too many poor dead animals out there. I would hate for them to get out there and cause an accident. I do have a nice big run though.

So I just do the talons, not the spurs? I have no idea what would be slicing up the ladies.

Again, thank you very, very much for your help! I appreciate it so much.

 

[Eggcessive]

Both toenails and spurs should be checked and trimmed. Dull the tips of the spurs with a dog nail clipper and file them smoothe. Spurs are the usual reasons for cuts under the wings, which can happen when mating. I think having two roosters in such a small flock, may be causing more agressive behavior.

I would separate and cage one of the roosters in a separate pen. You can let them have time with the hens by alternating them weekly, or deciding if rehoming or cullinging one for food would be best. You don’t even need a rooster, although I like having a gentle rooster in my flock. He should have 8-10 hens. Clean the wounds with Vetericyn or use plain antibiotic ointment twice a day.

 

[Bweis13]

Both toenails and spurs should be checked and trimmed. Dull the tips of the spurs with a dog nail clipper and file them smoothe. Spurs are the usual reasons for cuts under the wings, which can happen when mating. I think having two roosters in such a small flock, may be causing more agressive behavior.

I would separate and cage one of the roosters in a separate pen. You can let them have time with the hens by alternating them weekly, or deciding if rehoming or cullinging one for food would be best. You don’t even need a rooster, although I like having a gentle rooster in my flock. He should have 8-10 hens. Clean the wounds with Vetericyn or use plain antibiotic ointment twice a day.

Thank you so much for the advice! We have been putting povidone iodine ointment (which my dad used and I happened to have on hand) on the wounds and have most of the hens in saddles at the moment. There are a couple who seem to be either very speedy or unattractive to the roosters and are unharmed, thankfully. We clipped the nails and filed them today. I just realized neither of my roosters actually has spurs! I guess they’re still too young. I didn’t even look until today when we grabbed them and were clipping and filing.

I can’t wait to get rid of at least one of these nasty roosters. I want my layers to heal, so I may just re-home them both even though I really like having at least one rooster. I love hearing them crow and point out good food for the hens, and I‘ve always just liked them. I had no idea this was even a problem until a about a week ago. I guess I just had gentle roosters because I‘ve had more than one with fewer hens, and they did fine. I’ve never had two really big ones like these at once though, so I know you’re right that they’re showing more aggressive behavior.

I’m trying to figure out how to pen up one of the roos until I can take him to my brother’s. I think they’re too big for the rabbit hutch that we’ve used as a retirement coop, and both of my dog crates are in use. Ugh... what a pain, and all because someone at the hatchery didn’t sex a chick correctly. I know it’s difficult, but it causes problems like these, and we get so attached to the chickens because we have such a small flock. Oh well... it’s happened so many times to me. I don’t mind as much when it’s a little bantam unless it’s a game bird. I LOVE Japanese bantam roos and silky roos! I did have an evil bb red once. Talk about spurs! He was gorgeous, but he’d attack us every time we reached our hands into the nesting boxes. He ended up becoming a very coddled only chicken for a while at my brother’s and stopped hurting people when he didn’t have hens to protect. Oh, the drama. Ha!


Thanks again for your words of wisdom!

 

[driftergal]

I have a new young rooster as my older rooster died. He seems to be a good rooster but about a month after we got him he has made the back of one of my hens head look like hamburger meat. I separated her until her head healed and most of the feathers have grown back. I let her out to free range with the flock and he singled her out to attack. He’s attacking her with his spurs that have been cut off as well as violently ripping at the back of her head. Is there anything I can put on her head to keep him from ripping it apart again? I have 13 hens to 1 rooster.