Is 36 hens too much for one roo?

[Cindychlvr]

I currently have 12 laying hens with my roo. I recently purchased 24 more laying pullets to eventually add to the flock. Will 36 hens be too much for my roo to handle?? I am assuming he will choose his favorite girls and be just fine. Anyone have any input??

 

[allieloveschickens]

I think he will be one happy boy!

I don't think there will be any problems, though if you wanted fertile eggs from all of them that could be an issue- since that's a lot of ladies for one roo!

 

[redhen]

I think so..
Even Ron Jeremy (

) cant handle that...

 

[drumstick diva]

If he's an overachiever, servicing that many hens may just kill him. You don't need a roo for hen to lay eggs. IF you do want fertile eggs I think the ratio should be more like 1 roo to 12 hens or so. So you would probably do well with 3. Since they probably wouldn't get along ,you could split your flock up into 3 smaller ones with a rooster in each group

 

[aussieheelr]

Quote:
Good advise here.
We had 2 roos with our flock of 25 girls and they did fine together... but that depends A LOT on the personality of the roo too. Our younger roo scuffled maybe twice with the older one but was put in his place and no problems since. They seperated themselves picking out their own ladies... and did just dandy. Then again none of these roos ever offered any problem to me directly either.

 

[BirdNut]

As far as he's concerned, there's probably no such thing as too many.

I agree wiith drumstick diva's advice. Splitting the flock up into smaller groups of hens per roo is a good idea.

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

Our bantam Cochin sometimes has 30+ girls to watch. Not using him for breeding as he's a frizzled, and our bantam Cochin girls are frizzled also, so no frizzled/frizzled mixing. So he lives with the LF girls, some who go into different pens for breeding.

But Little Guy is fine with his flock, he's also top roo in that group even with everyone and all the other roos in there. He does have his favorites for breeding, he's not too interested in our BAs, SLWs or JGs but he LOVES his Barred Rock girls, but he'll watch out for all his girls and call all of them over for tasty treats and such.

 

[ralleia]

He'll be fine, health-wise.

If your goal is fertile eggs for hatching though, he won't be able to cover all the hens. What are your objectives with your flock?