How do I help my rooster from being picked on?

[Owen_Family]

Four months ago, I purchased 10 Australorp straight runs. After a few weeks, we noticed one of the chicks was forming stripes and found out we’d received a barred rock by mistake. I was so excited! A couple of months later, we realized we had 8 roosters and 2 hens! One of those roosters is the barred rock, and in the beginning he seemed to be at the top of the pecking order but recently, it seems like the other roosters are always ganging up and pecking or chasing him. Today, they pecked his tail feathers out! I put the two hens and one of the roosters in the coop and let the others free range, because I am afraid even in our larger coop, the others are going to seriously injure my barred rock. Any suggestions what I can do? They seem to get along fine when they go up to roost, but they are very aggressive during the day. Also, when do australorp hens begin laying? Thanks!!!

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

That many roosters won't work with so few hens. If you want to keep them around, you'll have to put the roosters in a separate coop https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/rooster-flocks.72998/.