How Many Roosters Is Too Many?

[chickenzoo]

I've had rooster pens, have a few now as I don't eat my chickens and love my Roos. When ever I'd get a young roo that was getting too big for his britches I'd throw him in the rooster pen for them to straighten the young one out. I have about 300 chickens and at least 1/4 are Roos..... Probably a lot more... Hehe. Yes many Roos will live together with out much fighting once everyone has their pecking order.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I've read elsewhere that multiple roosters can live together if there are no hens. Is that true? If my little guys turn out to be two extra roos I'm thinking maybe I could just put them in a separate coop. Like foghorn said, I'm not gonna eat these ones. In future hatches...maybe. But these chicks were raised to be our own little flock. Eating this batch is not an option for me.

However, I also get encouraged when I read that some people can keep a lot of roos with hens. Since they've all been together since they hatched I'm hoping the bigger roo will put the other two in line. But...only time will tell.

So...does anyone have success stories about separating extra roos into a different pen and having a few roos living together while having one rooster with all the girls?

I have kept multiple ROOs together....without hens, and it has worked very well for me in the past.

 

[foghorn8ladies]

Thank you to everyone and there thoughts. I love all my girsl and boys. I will try the roos together. The young roo is an Americana and he is already letting the his girls know whos boss. The new girls are Buffs, Barred Rock (3 of ea.) and one Americana. They are in the run with the others with wire fence dividing them and have been for 3mos. I was told that I needed to wait till they were 6mos before I could put them all together. Maybe they will all be one big happy family.

 

[The Chickeneer]

There has to be at least a 1:7 ratio of roosters to hens. We hatched 47 chicks this spring and 41 of them turned out to be rosters!! It was horrible

their backs had little feathers because of the pecking, and it wasnt worth wasting our money or time. We traded them for pullets and everything is peacefull now. The roosters we did keep seem much happier too. Now the lesson here is, we could have kept those rosters, but there would have to have been like a hundred or more hens to keep peace. But if they are all raised together, they will get along, only if you have 10 though and not 41.