Multiple roosters getting along?

[keckhart]

Hello! I wanted to request feedback from those of you that currently have or have had multiple Roos at one time in same area. I have 9 chickens total. 4 hens (one EE, one polish and 2 silkies) and 5 (yes FIVE) Roos (1 EE 2 silkies and 2 polish). We love them all and they were all raised together and get along great. There will be the occasional pecking order squabble but nothing dramatic. No one gets hurt. They all know their place and we have one Roo that has established himself as dominant. My question is this.... Do you think they will continue to get along? They are almost 5 months now. No aggression towards anyone or anything at this point. Only the dominant one and second in line attempts to mate the hens. The others act like hens that crow . I have read so much negative info on Roos and I really love these guys. I know each bird is different too that you can generalize to an extent but they each have their own personality. Thanks!

 

[Pyxis]

The roos may well continue to get along fine. I have two that grew up together that do just fine with each other. However, you're going to need more hens. Those roos will be after them to mate constantly, especially when they get their first burst of hormones. Those hens will have bare backs from the roosters mating them too much and they may get injured. The usual ratio for hens to roosters is ten hens for every rooster. If you want to keep all the roos, or really even more than one roo, you're gonna need to get some more hens.

 

[keckhart]

What about separating them? Will that work or the Roos will get at each other then?

 

[hope4rainbow]

We have two cockerels and 8 hens right now. The RIR mates all the girls except our D'uccle, only the silkie mates her and he leaves the bigger girls alone. Hopefully it stays that way and I want to get a few more small hens this spring. I think it could go either way. Could you make a bachelor pen and keep the dominant one in with the girls to lessen the chance of fights? Or definitely add more girls. I k.ow the feeling of raising them and loving them. I'm trying hard at this too!!

 

[keckhart]

That's what I'm wondering if the boys would be good separate. I can do that. I can't get a ton more hens to come to those ratios. Of course we didn't PLAN on all these. All of them but the silkies were "guaranteed" hens. Ya, whatever!

 

[Pyxis]

You could do a bachelor pen for the males you don't want to keep with the hens and they would be fine. Most times roosters aren't going to fight if there aren't any hens to fight over. So splitting them up could work. I'd still get a few more hens though for whichever rooster you decide to keep with the girls.

 

[Phoenixxx]

I haven't had a problem yet with "too many" roosters. Up until a week ago, I had 3 roos and 8? hens. Then I picked up somebody's whole flock. She had 4 boys. I sold twelve hens and one roo, put one of my own roos in the fridge (he had gotten really aggressive towards me plus his crowing was non-stop from sunrise past sunset) tossed the new hens in my main coop and had the 3 new roos seperated in the addition. Well, one morning I went out to feed them only to find they'd busted through the chicken wire seperating the two pens and everyone was together in the main coop getting along very well! I was shocked - like, one would think the two dominants would have had a go at each other, but nope! So, in a 6'x8' coop (nobody goes outside, even though they can, with this stupid weather) I have 5 boys and 13 girls living together quite happily! And, since Greybeard went into the fridge, it's QUIET!!!

 

[PrairieChickens]

Like others have said, the biggest problem you're probably going to face is too many roos to too few hens. Many people have bachelor runs where they keep their extra roosters, and in the absence of hens, they should coexist peacefully. We have 10 roosters right now, and we've only had to separate one of them... Not because he was fighting with the other chickens, but because they were bullying him. It worked out well for the bullied roo, though--he ended up in a private run with a harem of lovely ladies. I have another little banty roo that likes to start fights with his brothers, and he'll be rehomed soon. After that, the remaining roos should coexist peacefully.

 

[Uriel]

have a flock of 25 with about 8 roos. It took quite a lot of flock arranging to get them all to get along without attacking. The best bet is to raise them all together from the start so they are friends and act brotherly to each other. if you have sweet non-dominant roos, they will usually get along together. If one acts up one day, do a confinement period, then sometimes he will fit right in after a brief removal. (Doing that makes the whole flock change their pecking order, so don't do it too much)

Once a rooster acts dominant and overly matey, that one will usually fight the other roos especially the other more dominant males. I love my freerange flock with all the roos working together, it offers lots of protection and watchful eyes for free ranging. I have systematically removed the dominant traits from the flock's males by selling the more agressive guys and i have only really sweet little roos who are tame as can be and brothers with each other. The hens are happier with a lot of non-dominant boys together, then with one huge dominant roo raping them all. They all have their little boyfriend and the boys don't stray much from their couple of mates. I hardl ever even see them mating, and with a dominant roo around, its pretty much all i ever saw! It has helped to have all the roos be of different breeds, since same breeds will 'gang bang' together and take over dominant spot in pairs. I don't know why but it is always the medium sized hybrid roos that I end up loving to keep. Small ones have 'little man' syndrome, and the larger ones try to dominate the flock. Size is everything, with males, it seems. heh.

The biggest roo in my flock was a polish, who no one would fight, but also he doesn't mate because his poof makes him essentially blind. that helped me out a bit, too, with getting them to submit to a blind but extremely large roo as dominant spot. after he died, (he layed down at the spot where one of my polish hens died and died there too, to go to chicken heaven to be with her i guess) they just continued being good boys.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I currently have 15 full grown roosters of different ages & breeds in the Rooster Pen, sometimes as little as 10 or as many as 20. One is a former flock leader that I replaced with a better rooster, one is a breeder that feel out of faver, one I use for a broody rooster when I have chicks and 1 is my pet. The rest are just useless roosters. Most of them came from different hatches but they've all known each other most of their lives. Every once in a while they have a skirmish but nothing serious. They get along well for the most part. The troublemakers & ugly ones are the first ones to have a date with the hatchet.
They're all on borrowed time because they crow constantly and I will soon need the pen space to raise chicks.