Love sickness...or are the young roos just pest & predators?

[chickenguru]

8 weeks ago today I had eggs that started hatching and it took 2 days for everything to hatch. After selling a few after they all hatched
I had left 40 chicks(Doms & dom crosses) 4 turkey poults, and 15 guinea keets.
Since our temps have been so high along with the high humidity here in Southeast Louisiana, I had already turned the lights off in the brooder
at 2 weeks of age occasionally turning it on at night. I usually take my chicks out of the brooders at 4-5 weeks old and put them in one of the
large pens (20'x25') that I have. I have it set up in the pens so that I can section it off so that even when the wind blows, there will be no wind
blowing in the pens and I can put lights on the chicks if necessary. They still have plenty of ventillation around the tops but no unecessary drafts.
These have been the best looking bunch of chicks that I have hatched and started raising this year. At 5 weeks, there was NO doubt at all
which chicks were rooster or pullets, well maybe a few of the rose combs I have not been able to tell for sure but those that I have with single
combs there is no doubt what their sex is. All of the pullets and roos have well defined breast areas and some of the biggest legs and feet that
I personally have ever seen at this age.
I was giving that little background just to lead up to my problem.
As I said this is the best looking bunch of chicks that I have hatched this year (maybe longer back than that) and they all are very healthy and
doing great, that is up until this past Thursday. I was finally able to get out to the chicken pens myself for the first time in a week or so and
right off I noticed 3 of the pullets and 1 female turkey poult that did not look up to par. I picked them all up and visually looked them over
and feeling if I could maybe feel anything broke or out of place. I knew it should not be from the heat since our temps have actually been nice
the past week or so. They have fresh feed and water always.
So since I could find nothing wrong I was kind of lost at what to do. No type of visual sickness at all was present except the 4 birds did not look like
I thought or knew they should look. Late Thursday evening I had 1 pullet dead. Then Friday morning we had another pullet dead and the other
pullet and turkey did not look too good. First of all I should have taken the 4 of them out of the pen as soon as I saw them not looking as they
should but I have been having bad problems with my back and I just "let it slide" this time. Normally they would have been put in pens by themselves.
Saturday morning I was going to go the local sale barn as I usually do on Saturday and I had someone who had ordered some guinea
keets so me and my wife went out early to catch up what my customer wanted and we finally found out what the problem was. The young roos (there was eight
"7 WEEK OLD" roos in this pen) were trying to breed the 1 pullet and the 1 turkey poult that was still left out of the 4 that were "sick". When one of
the young roos would dismount and another roo would take its place and start trying to breed.
The only sickness I had in that pen it seem was a little love sickness. So I caught the roos up and put them in the pen with some 3 month old
pullets and roos. I went out after lunch today and low and behold one of the young roos was doing his best to mount one of the 3 month old pullets.
So beside getting rid of these roos I don't know what else I am going to do with them. (Sorry for rambling on so much and here is pics of 3 of the roos)

 

[shellrae7]

Dinner? I have heard of overactive roos before, but not generally at such a young age. Sorry you lost your pullets. Maybe just put them in an ALL ROO pen for a while until they are big enough to eat.

 

[Debbi]

How about sticking them in with some older hens. They may teach them some manners. Maybe even in with an older roo, he will definately teach them who's boss! I'd watch them though, to make sure the big roo didn't do real harm to them. I just noticed the other day, that my 8 week cockeral is chasing his female hatch mates around. Funny to watch, cause he has no clue what to do when he catchs them!

 

[chickenguru]

I had moved all of the young roos out of the pen with their hatchmates and in my first post I said I put them in the pen
with my 3 month olds but they are actually 4 months old. Oh, these little roos definately know what to do when they catch
up to the pullet and even the female turkey poult.
But I now have all of the smaller pullets in a seperate pen from the roos.
Anybody close by need any young roos with hyperactive hormones?
Since these are developing so good and actually have some meat on them
I may process a few and make a dish of jambalaya then stuff the young roos
with the jambalaya and bake. Should be tender and tasty.

 

[Debbi]

No, I meant stick them in a pen with some OLD hens, seasoned veterans if you will. The old gals will box their jaws for their over exuberant behavior! On the other hand, your recipe sounds good too~

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've seen that behavior at 11 weeks, not 8 weeks and never bad enough to hurt the pullets. Those look like nice roosters. And I've seen 14 week olds successfully mate with grown hens. No ear boxing there. At 8 weeks you may not get enough meat to make it worth the work of butchering them, but the jambalaya idea sure sounds good. That is your call. They should skin real easy at that age. If you have the facilities, I'd be real tempted to keep one or two as breeders if that suits your goals and just start eating on the others until they are gone. Those look too good to give away.

 

[MMPoultryFarms]

I am not sure how common this type of thing is. your young guys are active quite early. I have a simular problem I have a 9 week old RiR pullet that went broody on a boiled egg sounds like she would fit right in at your place.

 

[snowflake]

I'm separating my young roos tonight for that same reason. My oldest roo is real nice, don't want him to hurt the young roos but the guys are hard on the hens and it seems the more roos there are the more they need to prove their man hood.kind of try to out do each other.

 

[chickenguru]

Even though the jabalaya idea was a good thought there is really not quite enough meat on the roos to bother
doing that just yet. I moved all of the 4 month old pullets from the pen that I put the young roos in with some 4
month old roos. I have plenty of room and if I really wanted to right now I could go ahead and build another pen,
but I have already held back what I planned on using as breeders for next spring. Now if I go out to the
pen in the morning and something is going on, I know for sure they are definately out of here.
Actually I plan on loading most all of them up in the morning and going to one of the local auction barns and just
giving them away if I have trouble selling them. I guess I will decide on what to actually do in the morning though.
They are nice looking to be 8 weeks old. The pullets of that hatching look really good and are well developed. I have
never had them active at 8 weeks old though. Hmm, maybe the pullets will get active early and I can have layers sooner
than I had figured on having them.