If I get rid of my rooster(s) during gestation...

[FowlLanguage]

If I get rid of my rooster(s) during gestation, will my hens leave their eggs?

 

[BarredBuff]

What??

 

[greathorse]

no

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll admit that is a question I would never have thought of. I like questions like that. They make you think. I've never removed a rooster like that, so I cannot speak from experience, just kind of reason it out.

It is always possible that a broody hen will leave her eggs whether you remove the rooster or not. They are living animals and anything can happen. It just depends on how strong their broody instinct is.

If you remove the rooster, or any hen for that matter, from a flock, the pecking order will change. Assuming you only have one rooster, one hen will work her way into the flock dominance role. Depending on the personalities of your chickens, there may be a lot of fighting or there might not be much while this gets sorted out. In either case, a broody should not be involved in this. She has other things on her mind and she has such a bad attitude, the others don't want to mess with her anyway. I seriously doubt removing a rooster while a hen is broody will cause a broody to leave her eggs.

 

[Illia]

Hens will go broody whether there is a rooster there or not. . . Removing one will not change that. It is the same as hens laying an egg whether there is no rooster or not - They just do it out of nature.

 

[Backyard_Chicken_rancher]

sorry All I said was HUH?

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

Dang.... That one really threw me for a loop. I'm so used to seeing the same old common questions around here, that I had to think about this one.

If your broody hen is sitting on a clutch, and you remove the rooster from the flock, nothing *should* happen. 9 times out of 10 she'll remain broody and finish out the hatch. However, murphy's law is a pain in the heiny, and just when you expect something shouldn't happen, it does. The only way you'll know is to remove to the rooster and see what happens.