Love my roosters but....

[nfitzgeraldRN]

Ah. I love my roosters but....

I started out with 12 chickens, ended up with 9 hens and 3 roos. They will be a year in April. The three have gotten along famously but I have read about that could end up changing as they age.. They have a well defined pecking order. The top is my beautiful boy Hefe. He is the biggest rooster and a blue laced wynadotte. He is gentle but not such a good protector I don't think. My second in command is Romeo. This boy is bad, he is a Japanese white tailed. He is protective of the flock and any babies almost a fault. He isn't necessarily aggressive with humans, but he will go down with a fight if you get too close to my hens or any babies. Which is why I keep him. He would die for my flock, and they free range whenever possible. My low man is Crack.. he is the bottom of the barrel and a ugly little thing...but hes so sweet and the only chicken I have who comes to his name or "baby boy". He sits on my lap and lets me love him up!

Now my problem...I discovered the miracle of chicken life and these awesome chickens have reproduced. Unfortunately they didn't have all hens! (wishful thinking..) I now have 3 more roos. Just rehommed one because he was tearing up my girls. Now the other two are crowing (they are about 4 mths old) and the fighting has commenced. Now my top rooster Hefe is being super aggressive with all the other roosters and my hens are looking bad. I don't like the feel of too many roos. I loved the dynamic before these other roosters and have two questions.

-If I get rid of these two young roos

is there a chance my other roos will mellow back down?

- What is the overall opinion about keeping more than 1 roo. My flock would be 3 original roos and 13 hens... I am 5 adding HENS only to my flock in April so I would be at 3/18..

Also, I loved the ease of letting my hens raise the babies..so much better than ME doing all that dirty work! But I don't want MORE roosters to get rid of so I am going to try adding the day old chicks to my ALWAYS sitting two girls. Does anyone have opinions on this? Can I just sneak those little suckers in the nest at night? I will make sure to keep an eye out for harm, and have a backup ready to put into action.

This is such a sad dilemma. I am totally in love with my 3 originals and cannot bear to part with them..

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[donrae]

I would absolutely try getting rid of the young guys and see if your seasoned roosters settle back down. It may take a while, but that would be the first step. After they've been gone a few weeks, then reassess your flock and see how things are going at that time.

Good broodies are usually pretty happy to adopt chicks. Conventional wisdom is to let them set on something fake for around the normal brood time--3 weeks for chickens--and then give her chicks at night. Get the chicks as young as possible, once they're a week or so they might not graft to the hen. If they're a day or two old, they'll usually just tuck right under momma and she's happy as a lark. She'll often still set for another day or so--her brain is telling her to stay until everyone's had a chance to hatch--then she'll take them off the nest.

I'm with you--having momma hen do all the work is so much easier!

 

[sourland]

If you get rid of the young cockerels, the 3 original roosters MAY settle down. Removal of the excess cockerels is the only way to determine this. Daylength is increasing and along with this the testosterone levels of your roosters is also increasing. The aggressiveness may very well be a result of this in addition to increased competition. Good luck, but start to settle things down by removing the young cockerels.

 

[nfitzgeraldRN]

Thank you sourland. I have found a new home for them both and they will be gone within the next few days.