Ill have too many roosters right?

[matt14132]

Hello everyone,

I will be hatching out a dozen eggs and was thinking about the fact that I have the chance of having way too many roosters by the time this is over right?

I mean whatever way it works out, wether its 5-5, 6-4, 4-6, 3-7 or whatever the combination ends up being, wouldn't that mean I would have too many roosters and that my ladies would probably be pretty bald from all the attention they get from multiple roosters?

 

[Mrs. Light Sussex]

Ideally, you want 1-10. When hatching eggs you never know how many will hatch (very rarely will you get 100 percent hatch rate), or what the male/female ratio will be. Always have a backup plan for the excess males.

 

[MINDANAO DAVE]

Hello everyone,

I will be hatching out a dozen eggs and was thinking about the fact that I have the chance of having way too many roosters by the time this is over right?

I mean whatever way it works out, wether its 5-5, 6-4, 4-6, 3-7 or whatever the combination ends up being, wouldn't that mean I would have too many roosters and that my ladies would probably be pretty bald from all the attention they get from multiple roosters?

Figure 1 rooster to 8 hens. You should be fine.

 

[Birdinhand]

if you are confident of your ability to sex the chicks in the first day or so, that is the best/easiest time to cull the roos. you only want one rooster max, if any at all. sex links are the easiest to sex due to very distinct markings for the males from day one.

 

[chickens really]

Out of 7 eggs my Hen hatched only one was a Pullet...Time before out of 6 eggs one was a Pullet....I give all Cockerels away free....

 

[Ridgerunner]

You are correct, there is no way of knowing what the ratio of males to females will be in any hatch. Very few of my hatches are that close to 50-50, I’d say 2-3 one way or the other is closer to normal. Over time with several hatches it should come close to 50-50 but each individual hatch can be way off.

There is no magic in these rations. Some people have a ratio of females to males of close to 1-1 and don’t have problems. Some people have one rooster with over 20 hens and do have problems, even a mature rooster and hens. There are a lot of different things involved. People like absolute guarantees and full disclosure in 5 second sound bites. Real life doesn’t work that way. How much room you have, individual personalities of both the females and the males involved, some hens just have brittle feathers that will break even if the male’s technique is perfect, just so many different things involved.

One really big one is age. When yours go through puberty the males hormones are running wild and out of control. The pullets generally mature later and are not able to do their part after the hormones hit the males so they don’t cooperate. Once they all mature into adults they often settle down to a peaceful flock, several other things considered, but watching them go through puberty is often not for the faint of heart.

The hens going bald are not the only potential problems, especially during puberty. They are sorting out flock dominance and pecking order issues which can get really violent. Mostly males but also females can be hurt or killed during this. The less space you have the worse these things normally are.

I just don’t believe in magic and magic numbers. There is no ratio that guarantees that you will have problems and there is no ratio that guarantees you will not have problems. I raise what I hatch with the flock. Often I have several more cockerels than pullets and don’t have these problems, but sometimes I do. What I always recommend is that you keep as few males as you can and still meet your goals. That’s not because of any guarantee you will have problems with more males, just that the more males you have the more likely you are to have problems.

There is a whole lot I don’t know about your set-up or your goals but the bottom line is that you don’t know if you will get one male or all males from that hatch. You don’t know how many will hatch to start with. With one hatch this spring I had 9 chicks out of 18 eggs set. My next hatch was 17 chicks out of 19 eggs set. You need to have a plan for any and all chicks that might hatch, female as well as male.

 

[Chickassan]

Before you even think about incubating eggs have a plan in place for any boys you hatch. I got 50/50 this time but i have had 80/20 if you hatch all pullets you better go play the lotto because you are one lucky person!

 

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC. The odds say that most likely you will have too many roosters. Start looking up chicken recipes in advance.

 

[authHeirlooms]

Yes - there's a good chance of too many roosters, we've always gone by a 12+/1 ratio. You can certainly use the rest for meat - the truth is that there are usually "too many roosters" in any hatch for the commercial market and letting them naturally grow to maturity seems a better life to them than what happens in the big hatcheries. We pick the roosters that display good behavior to the hens and us to keep on in the flock.