Is the behavior in my coop "normal"?

Yes, roosters will crow all day and at night if they are awake. It can get really annoying, I think they get into crowing contests and have to out do each other and have the last crow.

Roosters can get very rough with hens. I got stuck with 5 roosters and 8 hens last year and I felt so sorry for the hens. The roosters would basically gang rape a hen when they finally got her down and one hen was completely bald on her back and another was completely bald on her head. I finally sent 4 of the roosters off to freezer camp as soon as it was warm enough outside to process them.

ETA: You can either get rid of some roos or, better yet, just get more hens!

 

lol. My neighbors came over when I first got my chickens and told me there was something wrong with them because they crowed early in the morning but never stopped. It is a misconception that roosters only crow at sunrise. It was a sad realization for my neighbors but amusing for me

 

Yep, they can crow a lot and start very early and go all day long... I have a Serama rooster that crows very loud and all day long. Actually he crows until he falls asleep. Our Jersey Giant is more traditional about his crowing. He starts at about 5 am and will crow all day for different reasons it seems.

 

To many roosters lol, and the age difference between birds can be a problem, maybe put the younger ones in there own area safe from the older birds, and roosters. Also if there mating a chicken does well I hear with these chicken saddles ( outer wear to protect the girls from being harmed during mating)

 

I'm having the same trouble too, just the last few days. We have 20 17 wk old hens, and two were supposed to be hens and aren't. One was a snotty young roo, but has mellowed out finally. The other is a huge gorgeous buff orp who has been kind and mellow, likes to walk around with me. Always been a treat hog tho. Breaks up fights, calms em down. Last two days he's grabbing the smallest hens by the neck and shoving their face in the dirt. At that point they usually break away, squaking - and everybody runs. He's trying to step on them, and most are little EE's , 1/3 his size. He left bruising and cuts on three hens combs/wattles/ears this morning. So I put him in a dog kennel, not without him trying to bite me. And again when I took him out. Can you place all the roos together, if away from the hens? My chicken mentors are telling me all these romantic roo stories... At this point I'm thinking that's a bunch of chicken sh_t. We only want to feed the roos out, but will be another month. I know what he's trying to do.. but he's hurting them.

Help!

 

You have a mini jr high going on in there, too much testerone, and they're in a contest for who can out manily the others. If possiable I'd split the flock into 2 groups, and split the roos between. Since you have banty and LF i'd split on size, and see if that calms things down some. (just run a chickenwire divider in the coop/pen already made, no need to build a new coop in the try-out phase). The mean silkie would find himself invited to dinner, too many behaved roos need homes, to put up with a mean one.

 

I was just outside ..at 4am and the neighbors roosters were crowing.. they do every night at odd hours.. what happened to the cartoon roosters that crow at dawn to wake you up.???

Pink

 

Quote:I had one that was 2 times a day, dawn, dusk, maybe once a week he'd let slip one more, but he was very punctiual.

 

I would say the crowing is normal, but if you reduce the number of Roos I think that they would crow less because , Like at my house i had to many and they crowed constantly,When I thinned them out their was less compition thus less crowing. I now have 2 roos to 33 hens, but the silkie pen is 2 Roos to 7 hens it used to be 9 roos to 7 hens , boy that was a challenge I got rid of 7 Roos and everything is hunky dory now, hens are happier, I know Im happier and Im sure the neighbors are Too. LOL