Keeping Multiple Roosters

[EverythingDucks]

I want to have multiple breeds of roosters to be able to have purebred offspring. But I'm not entirely sure how to do this. Should I just have multiple coops and keep them separate? I'm thinking I'll probably have to have another coop for my smaller breeds (silkies, seramas, etc) anyways. If I do this could all the chickens free range together or should they be completely separate? Or is it possible to have multiple roosters coexist in the same coop? I know if they are raised together they can often get along.
Sorry for all the questions, I don't know a whole lot about chicken keeping

 

[HappyDuckie]

I have three roosters that live together, and free range together with no problems. I think it greatly depends on the rooster/s, along with the number of hens.
Breeding pens, or separate coops would likely be your best bet.

 

[SerrarGett]

If you want to have multiple roosters, I suggest having a bachelor coop far away from the females with their own enclosed area. If the ladies are out of sight, they are out of mind and the fighting over breeding will decrease. This also means that when you want to breed, you'll have to have a separate enclosure where the rooster and hens are introduced.

 

[FuzzyCritters]

You could set up a bachelor pad for the roosters to live when they are not breeding. When you want to breed, move the rooster into the flock or breeding pen with the hens you want him to breed with. Roosters are able to coexist peacefully in bachelor flock most of the time, because they have no hens to fight over. The hens also won't be stressed out from having multiple roosters.

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

If you are breeding "pure bred" chickens, they HAVE to be separated at least during breeding season. So you would need multiple pens. During the "off season", if you are going to HAVE one, then you might be able to free range them together. (Or not.)

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Cock birds do fine together until they suddenly don't. It's a hormonal thing every spring and comes down to if there are enough hens to go around, if they both have the same favorite and so forth. Come fall there will be challenges or the top cock keeping the younger ones in their place. That said, multiple cocks can keep to the same coop.

I think you'll be better off with fewer breeds. They will all need separate breeding pens and if wanting to improve quality you'd be keeping several gentleman of each breed. It requires a lot of space and certainly separate pens for at least the breeding season. It may require a coop for bachelors. It's how you manage it but I'm suggesting you start with two breeds and feel the waters before jumping in.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You may already know this but I'll go through it anyway, it may help you plan.

It takes about 25 hours for an egg to go through a hen's internal egg making factory. It can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Monday, Monday's egg is not fertile from that mating. Tuesday's egg might or might not be, depending in timing. I would not count on it. Wednesday's egg will be.

A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in his flock every day, but he doesn't have to. In the last part of the mating act the rooster hops off, his part is done. The hen stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. That fluffy shake gets the sperm into a container near where the egg starts it's journey. That sperm can remain viable in that container for 9 days to over three weeks. That means he only needs to mate with her once a week to keep her laying fertile eggs. It also means you need to keep a hen isolated from any rooster you don't want to be the father for a month before you collect an egg to hatch.

To me this gives you three basic options. There can be variations of these. You can build facilities and keep every flock separated. Might be expensive and could be a fair amount of work.

You can try housing them all together when it's not breeding season and separate them as necessary to get genetically clean eggs. Sometimes this works, they get along great. Many people do it this way. But sometimes it doesn't work, the boys just can't get along. There is only one way to find out.

You can house all the girls together and all the boys together but in a separate location. Usually if there are no girls to fight over the boys don't fight much. Usually. This way the girls are always genetically clean so you can isolate them with a rooster and get hatchable eggs in a few days. You still need breeding pens.

You'll need different facilities for each of these methods. Managing them will be different. I'd suggest trying a method that would be convenient for you and see how it goes.

 

[Brooks_]

As already said, for breeding they would have to be separate.
Aside from that there's no way to know until you try. My three roos for example, A and B get along; B and C get along; A and C, not so much.

 

[RiverOtter]

I have a bunch of roosters, I dunno if I've got a magic touch, but I've never had an issue. They scuffle on occasion, I've had a couple of bloody combs over the years, but that has been the most drama that's happened. Usually there's a clear top dog and we call him King Roo.

But of course, roosters don't see breed when they mate. Anything that they can catch is fair game. Which can be amusing when the tiny banties go after the big girls, but there's no way to get pure eggs without separating breeding groups.

 

[VT_Veggie_Lover]

You may already know this but I'll go through it anyway, it may help you plan.

It takes about 25 hours for an egg to go through a hen's internal egg making factory. It can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Monday, Monday's egg is not fertile from that mating. Tuesday's egg might or might not be, depending in timing. I would not count on it. Wednesday's egg will be.

A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in his flock every day, but he doesn't have to. In the last part of the mating act the rooster hops off, his part is done. The hen stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. That fluffy shake gets the sperm into a container near where the egg starts it's journey. That sperm can remain viable in that container for 9 days to over three weeks. That means he only needs to mate with her once a week to keep her laying fertile eggs. It also means you need to keep a hen isolated from any rooster you don't want to be the father for a month before you collect an egg to hatch.

To me this gives you three basic options. There can be variations of these. You can build facilities and keep every flock separated. Might be expensive and could be a fair amount of work.

You can try housing them all together when it's not breeding season and separate them as necessary to get genetically clean eggs. Sometimes this works, they get along great. Many people do it this way. But sometimes it doesn't work, the boys just can't get along. There is only one way to find out.

You can house all the girls together and all the boys together but in a separate location. Usually if there are no girls to fight over the boys don't fight much. Usually. This way the girls are always genetically clean so you can isolate them with a rooster and get hatchable eggs in a few days. You still need breeding pens.

You'll need different facilities for each of these methods. Managing them will be different. I'd suggest trying a method that would be convenient for you and see how it goes.

This is SO informative! I'm not interested in breeding, or if it happens it happens, but very cool to know!