How do I decide who to keep Roo-wise and who goes from my small flock of 3month old BO's ?

[guarinogardener]

Hi,
This is our first adventure into the fluff-side and I had to work hard to convince my hubby to come over. We bought 8 BO chicks straight run who are now 3 months old. I am relatively sure 3 are hens, 3 are roo's ( they are crowing and grumpy with each other ) and the other 3???? They other 2 have more developed secondary characteristics than the 3 hens but are not crowing. My gut is 1 roo and a hen. My question is how do I decide IF I am right and I only have 4 hens which roo to keep. There is definitely one in charge right now but he pecks and bites at us. (He has a rumpled tail so we call him Grumpy Rump) When he did it to me I was relatively close to him so I picked him up and held him quietly until he calmed down. He doesn't do it to me anymore. Sorry but I'm not going to put up with a chicken fussing at me...I get that enough with my teenagers! We also have a calm one we call "The Professor". He's not in charge right now because of Grumpy Rump but he will allow a scratch on the chest and then walks away. So...Grumpy Rump or The Professor?


BTW Hope this is the right place for this question, if not please feel free to move it where it needs to go.

Thanks, I still feel like I'm pipping inside my own egg trying to get out!
deAnne

 

[Percheron chick]

Grumpy has no place as attitudes only tend to escalate. Once you remove him, Mr P might get too big for his britches too. With 3-4 roos, there is going to be extra BS and you might get a decent rooster just by getting rid of the extras. You just don't know until you test it.

If you put pictures up, you could probably get the mystery of the remaining 2 solved.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

I agree, Grumpy will only get worse as he matures. Give the Professor a chance at the top spot.

There are too many extra (sweet) roosters in the world to keep an aggressive rooster.

 

[beauzdad]

Hi all,
I am new to back yard birds and have a similar situation, I have 16 birds (6) barred rock pullets, (7) buff Orpington pullets, and (3) buff Orpington Roos. All are 11 weeks old I figured on keeping only one of the Roos. One is clearly the boss, he is vocal and is always watching what is going on around the coop and run. The other two are very submissive. All seem to get along just fine so far. Can I keep them all? I've gotten attached

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Hi all,
I am new to back yard birds and have a similar situation, I have 16 birds (6) barred rock pullets, (7) buff Orpington pullets, and (3) buff Orpington Roos. All are 11 weeks old I figured on keeping only one of the Roos. One is clearly the boss, he is vocal and is always watching what is going on around the coop and run. The other two are very submissive. All seem to get along just fine so far. Can I keep them all? I've gotten attached

You should probably keep no more than two of them, unless you want to start a bachelor pen. They'll begin to fight over the hens if there aren't enough hens for the roos, and they'll really over-mate the hens.

Of course, you could just get yourself up to 30 hens, and then you could keep them all. See, chicken math solves problems!