Hens beating up on Rooster

[kaywould]

Long time lurker and first time poster.

We have 2 33-week Ameraucana roosters that just started crowing about 2 weeks ago. The 3 Ameraucana hens still have not started laying eggs. One rooster is a wheaten and the other is a blue wheaton. The roosters do not really fight. I've maybe observed them bump chests once or twice and it was over quickly and the blue wheaton appears to be the dominant rooster. Multiple hens though peck and pick on the wheaton and one of our white Ameraucana hens will fluff up her neck and really fight him. The blue wheaton rooster will observe but doesn't do anything about the fighting. Is this common behavior. We have 2 roosters and 15 hens. I know the ratio is not ideal. Wasn't an issue until about 2 weeks ago when they finally figured out they were male and started crowing. Had a 3rd rooster that went in the fridge yesterday. Had 6 chicks (5 Ameraucanas and a mix breed) that all grew up together and were introduced to and share a pen with 9 adult hens (2-3 years old). Tried to do a google search but couldn't find much info on hens fighting roosters. I have observed the wheaton mating in the last few days, sporadically, but have never seen the blue wheaton mating even though he seems to be the more dominant one. Nobody seems to mess with the blue wheaton rooster.

Also, one of the Ameraucana hens has, what appears to my untrained eyes, an unusual coloring for an Ameraucana and was wondering if you could help identify it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one of these days I'll go out and finally find a blue egg.

If the wheaton rooster keeps getting picked on then based on our not ideal ratio of hens to roosters I will re-home the wheaton rooster.

#1 Wheaton Rooster Left and Blue Wheaton Rooster Right

#2 Unidentified hen standing next to Blue Wheaton rooster

#3 The other 2 Ameraucana hens both look like this one. It is one of these that fights with the Wheaton rooster



#4 Another pic of the Wheaton rooster

 

[Percheron chick]

And the problem is? Sounds like your hens are keeping the boys in line and not allowing them to get too big for their britches. If anything, your boys will be much nicer. No reason to go down to one.

The one rooster you are calling a blue wheaten is not. He isn't any standard color. The 3rd hen is an EE. She's not standard either.

 

[kaywould]

Thanks for the advice and info. I hate to re-home one if I don't have to. My wife and I have been disagreeing on if that rooster was a blue Wheaton or a buff and looks like we were both wrong.

 

[Percheron chick]

The wheaten is a wheaten but the blue can't have white feathers. Light grey or blue are OK but he looks like he has white sickle and chest feathers and a white beard. A buff wouldn't have white either. Probably some rogue rooster got in with the Ameraucana hens.

 

[kaywould]

A few more pics in case it helps.
So, it is normal behavior for the hens to fight with the roosters?
We have only done a few small hatches and only had 1 rooster each time and it didn't last long. Only long enough to get us some fertilized eggs then it was dinner. I was thinking the wheaton rooster was not the dominant one because, even though it was the only one I ever saw mating, it did it at night when I was moving the roosters and Ameraucana hens from their preferred roosting spot to inside the coop, and it would occasionally get amorous at night when the other rooster wasn't around. I thought maybe it snuck in the mating attempts at night when the other rooster couldn't see so it wouldn't get beat up, but now that I've seen him mating in the daytime and the other rooster never did a thing, I guess that Wheaton rooster must be the dominant one. Love having chickens but having roosters in the flock makes it even more fun.