How to start a bachelor pad for my roosters? Help please!

[Liza728w]

I have 6 roosters that I want to start a bachelor pad for. I"ve never done this before. They are seramas. They are pretty mean (even to their hens), so I wanted to try a bachelor pad to get them out of their individual cages.

I have a few questions I'd love to see if I can get answered.. :
1. If I free-range all of the roosters, will they willingly go into the same coop at night? (Freeranging area will be far away from hens located in a separate pasture)
2. How do I go about introducing them all together? They currently all live in separate cages in my garage. They can see hens right now, so their hormones are heightened.

I may have more questions, but those two are the biggest. Thank you in advance!

 

[nuthatched]

Either bachelor pads work or they don't. Given that they're already aggressive, I'm leaning towards it not working and it might end up in a bloodbath.
The see but don't touch method is great, you have them on either side of a fence for about 2-3 weeks so they get used to each other. I've never tried it with roosters so I'm mot sure how that would go.

 

[Mrs. K]

I started out to say, I would not do this all at once...but upon consideration, you might. After all they will all be so busy defending themselves, it just might be a lot of bluster and then settle down.

I think the responsible thing to do would to let them out to free range, and leave the garage open so they come back at night.

Then at night in the dark, I would grab 2 and put them in the coop you want them all to stay in. Keep them there in the coop for several days and nights as long as they are not fighting. Then add the other four. I would let them out during the day, and leave the garage open - for a couple of days. Unless you have a run attached to the coop.

What you need to have happen, is for them to become attached to the coop, but I would not want to lock all 6 in a single coop, until they were being fairly nice outside. There is a strong chance, that they will follow the original pair back to the coop, and the ones that go to the garage - should be easy to move after dark. 1-2 days later close the garage.

Do know there is a real chance that this will not work for at least some of the birds. Being raised together has almost no influence on cockerels behavior. It is almost entirely genetic, and there is a real possibility that you will need to cull some of them.

Mrs K

 

[3KillerBs]

1. If I free-range all of the roosters, will they willingly go into the same coop at night? (Freeranging area will be far away from hens located in a separate pasture)

If they have any suspicion that the hens exist you can count on them making their way to where the hens are.