Hen to Rooster Ratio: What is sufficient? Please help!

[ChickLover98]

Hello! I want to keep my little cockeral, Charley, but I already have a great rooster, Jasper. I picked up a 4-H guide to chicken raising a few weeks ago and it says that 14-24 hens per rooster (for mating purposes) is sufficient. But, I have been looking at some BYCer's ratios, and some have 1 rooster to every 10 hens. As of now, I have 10 full grown hens and 3 of their daughters that are growing up with Charley. I want to prevent as much fighting as possible. We will be expanding our coop in the spring, too. What do you think is sufficient? Please help me!

Thanks in advance!

 

[magistradomina]

Hi! We have 1 rooster and 16 hens. We used to have 2 roos. We only put 1 roo with the hens at a time and we would swap them every once in a while. We did put both roos in the pen with the hens, but they fought each other and the hens looked REALLY bad. So we just ended up butchering 1 of the roosters, and putting the other rooster in a seperate pen from the hens until we wanted to hatch chicks and then we would put the roo with the hens. You only want 1 roo! It makes life sooo much easier, but if you want both roos, keep them seperted! Hope this helps!

 

[ChickLover98]

Thanks! I still dont know if Jasper would fight with Charley. I am trying to sell Peeta, my other baby roo.

 

[peacockfarmer1]

no they will probably not fight considering the younger ones age
i had one rooster with 22 hens and the hatch rate was better than 2 roosters with 25 hens

 

[Judy]

Two roos with 16 hens may work fine. I have two with 14 hens. One hen looks a bit tattered on her back, but she actively solicits being mated. Everyone else looks fine, no bare backs, no saddles needed. My two don't fight. The main one chases the other one or runs at him; I've never even seen him peck. It just depends on your chickens.

Sometimes one roo is too many for 16 hens, or any hens for that matter, if the roo is really rough on the girls. People often keep a breeding trio of chickens, one roo and two hens.

The rule of thumb on here is one roo to 10 hens; that's meant to keep the girls from being abused. It's really just a ballpark number, though, I think mainly intended to show newcomers that they don't want anywhere near a 50/50 mix.

 

[M To The Maxx]

People say the best ratio is 1 roo:10 hens.

 

[Muscovies]

I have two Roos on 7 or 10 hens

 

[RedfogsFlock]

Well everthing i've read says 10 to 1 hens to roo ratio. I recently had 4 roos to 15 hens, BUT (there's always one of those) I had a main roo, and then the other three well one was a silky never tried to make any hens his ladies. The other two were a lot younger than the others so they knew where they stood right away. No problems.