Keep roosters seperate from hens?

[Tinkerchick]

We have 5 hens total and just found out the 6th hen is really a rooster. They are not old enough to lay eggs yet. But I heard your suppose to keep the Rooster seperate from the Hens because they fertalize the eggs and you'll get red in them. What should I do?
Tink

 

[equine chick]

What kind of roo do you have? I had to separate my rooster this week. He was being a lil terror with the hens who are just getting to laying age. I used to get eggs from a coworker that kept the roo with the hens and there was never a red(bloodspot) in them.
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[Julie in Al]

I have never separated the Roos unless there were to many for the girls. The bloodspot is not caused by Rooster mating. It is caused by a cell problem when the egg is developing. You can have those whether or not there is a rooster near the pullets.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

No you don't need to separate your rooster from your hens...when they are old enough to lay and he is mature he will make the eggs fertile but its nothing to do with red or blood or what we call meat spots in eggs...the red is a small rupture that happened....alot of hens have meat spots sometimes.....they are still good.....its a fertile disc spot like a bulls eye with a white spot in it...thats a fertile egg....

 

[Tinkerchick]

Oh that's good to know.
I have 3 auracanas hens, one golden laced cochin hen, one bantam hen. The roo is an orpington.
So far the roo is very gental probably because the hens are bigger then he is.
Thanks for the input.

 

[Tinkerchick]

So the eggs are okay to eat then with the roo fertalizing them?

 

[rosyposyosy]

yes - but i found out that pullet eggs sometimes have blood spots in them... my second (i dare not break the first!) egg i found broken on the coop floor, there was a blood spot. it is fine, it is tiny, it is ok to eat - but some people pick it out anyways. also - i found out that fresh fertilized eggs have a white target looking spot in the middle of the yolk

 

[greyfields]

The blood spot has absolutely nothing to do with the egg being fertilized or not.

I'm not entirely sure, but I thought there was absolutely no way to tell a fertilized egg from a non-fertilized egg? Once you collect your eggs (twice a day) and they head into the fridge, the point is irrelevant since that stops all growth and makes the embryo unviable.

I keep one rooster with my layers (~50 Speckled Sussex, Barred Rocks, Black Sex Links and Cornish). His name is Ollie. I keep my 6 other roosters away from the hens, using portable electric netting. Otherwise, all those roosters just chase the hens all day, and they don't eat and lay as they should.

One thing is for sure, the cockrels mature sooner than the hens start laying eggs. They will be harassing the hens for weeks on end, trying to figure out which end the vent is on, and it's just chaos.

I choose to keep the one rooster with them for lots of reasons. The largest is the hens like him. They follow him around like he's some rock star. It's typical to see 6 or 8 hens just following him like a posse. He also regulates any fighting the hens do. I call him the little feathered sherrif.

I think keeping one roo with your six hens should be fine. If he starts injuring them, then you need to deal with the rooster. You can send him to auction, eat him, separate him or sell him.

 

[regalado70]

We had 12 chicks out of those there are 2 roos a friend gave us 6 deleware it looks like maybe 3 may be roos if the stripe on there tales is how you tell so if this is right how many roos for 13 hens

 

[specsussex]

We had 12 chicks out of those there are 2 roos a friend gave us 6 deleware it looks like maybe 3 may be roos if the stripe on there tales is how you tell so if this is right how many roos for 13 hens

One would be enough... You might get away with two, but I would just stick with one.