Need Some Advice about Roosters and Flock....Blunt opinions welcome...don't sugar coat it...

[stargazer2014]

I think I'm about to or already have have a roo problem. Short-ish story...

My established flock was made up of 12 hens, and 1 EE rooster. The EE roo is a little rough on the hens when breeding, but other than that, he's not bad to them. Sadly, with the massive heat wave in the midwest, we've lost 6 hens despite ice, fans, misters, water, etc. It's heartbreaking....anyway....

Well, enter my new additions.....RIR's. I've added in 13 RIR hens, and 2 roo's (asked for all hens, and got 2 roos....go figure). The RIR roos are very nice (so far), and one is much more mature than the other. My EE roo and the more mature RIR roo had a short squabble, and now leave each other alone. The EE roo tends to his 6 ladies, and the RIR roo rounds up his. (he's like a herding dog!!)

However, the less mature RIR rooster seems to be enemy number 1 with the EE rooster. The EE kept going after the smaller RIR, and eventually injured him on the back of the head severely. I came home to the smaller RIR roo cowering in a corner while the RIR hens were picking at his wound. Thankfully, we pulled him out of the coop and he is healing elsewhere. I have a nice home for him when he's all healed up, so I'm very glad. He's a very sweet boy, and I hate to see him in the freezer camp before he'd had a chance to strut his stuff.

Turn back to yesterday evening....I went to check on my flock, and a RIR hen has an almost identical wound on the back of her head! She is now sequestered and healing (my garage is turning into a MASH it seems..). i can't prove he did it, but I've noticed the EE roo bullies the RIR hens and the mature RIR roo into the corner of the coop, keeping them from food and water while he is in there. They do get to the food and water, because the EE roo heads outside where it's cooler.

The two flocks have been combined for a little over a week now. Is this normal roo behavior when new chickens are introduced? Should I wait it out, and see if they can co-habit the coop peacefully? The coop and run are plenty big enough, and we're even getting ready to expand the run when the ground softens up a bit. (pick-ax anyone?)

Or should the EE roo be dinner? He's beautiful...but I don't want my MASH unit full of injured hens!!!

 

[HEChicken]

Is there any way you can divide the space in half with chicken wire - RIR's on one side, EE with his hens on the other?

 

[crchickens]

Wow, you lost so many girls with this heat!! I am so sorry. I was on full chicken duty during the spell, and I guess we are getting hit again with more heat this coming week. Yikes. Can you add more vents to your coop? It might help.

We recently added 6 older rescued hens to our flock. We had a couple of incidents the first several days, just a little blood on the heads of two of our pullets. I cleaned them up, and could not even find a wound, but they have all settled in now. I don't have roos, but I wonder if yours will all settle in if given time? Maybe put out more feeders and waterers, so everyone can get to them, and the "power" is not in your EE's hands so much?

 

[mstricer]

It must have gotten really hot there. I didn't even lose any meat birds and our heat index was 110* the only time I lost birds due to the heat was last year and the old man worked 12 hours and I was out of town. He forgot to let them out. Was not a good thing.

 

[Mrs. K]

I think you have been surprisingly lucky when you combined two flocks like that, that things did not go much worse. I think I would get rid of the 2nd status RIR roo. And wait and see if they adjust. They might, are they all the same size? Similar ages?

 

[peterlund]

Why have roos at all? If you are just looking for eggs, and it seems you have a source t o buy chicks at any given time.... Why put up with the aggression, noise and worries of a roo??/ My 2 cents... Non sugar coated as asked!

 

[HeatherM1375]

I'm having a similar problem. I just found my white leghorn rooster a new home, but now his clutch mate, a RIR rooster (who was docile) is now picking on my 6 12 week old chicks, and his other clutch mate, who I believe is a White Leghorn hen. The RIR jumped on the hen yesterday and was clawing at her and pecking at her. She was in a corner of the coop with her head buried in the dirt. I went out there and broke it up. It looked like what the White Leghorn Rooster would do to the RIR rooster before I rehomed the White Leghorn rooster. I'm confused and have no idea what this behavior is. I'm begining to wonder if the White Leghorn hen is actually another rooster. She looks like a hen though and I have not heard her crow. I was very upset to see the RIR rooster actng that way toward her. He is now out in the run, and the White Leghorn hen and the 6 chicks won't come out of the coop. I'm going to separate the RIR rooster from the flock over the weekend and see how the flock behaves. I hope I don't have to rehome him. My kids are so attached to him and the White Leghorn "hen".

Good luck! That is awful. I hope that your hens get better!

 

[Daisy8s]

I'd say give it another week or so. Flocks take awhile to work out the pecking order. Just be sure nobody can get trapped. I had a juvenile rooster get severely injured by a hen because he got trapped in a corner for several hours--his back was like hamburger and took weeks to heal.

Do you care about breeding and what kind of chicks you get down the road? It may be possible for three roosters to divide up 19 hens between themselves. Or, it may never work in which case two roosters dividing up 19 hens is also fairly reasonable, based on the rule of thumb of 10 hens per rooster.

If you don't want to cull whichever rooster you decide needs to go then you could try Craigslist or posting him for free on the swap thread here. Good luck!

 

[centrarchid]

Isolate rooster. Rearrange environment of combined flock to make so nobody on home turf.


Major problem is why so many birds lost to heat. Something not right. Could you show picture of setup.

 

[stargazer2014]

Sorry for not replying sooner....computer and internet issues for over a week now!

Things have actually calmed down from when I first posted. Our injured rooster has a new home with my inlaws, and the injured hen is all healed up and back out with the flock with no problems. My EE rooster seems to have accepted the newcomers and leaves them and the other RIR alone.

We're not into breeding, just eggs. Our roosters are the product of asking for all pullets, and getting a roo on accident.

As for the heat....our coop is very well ventilated, especially now! Before the changes we made this year, it had 2 screened windows, a large roof vent, and several other small vents around the roof. We had 1 fan blowing on the nesting boxes, one above that, and then one blowing at the ground level. We've now added an exhaust fan...the kind you find in greenhouses, and added a 4th fan that is so powerful it practically blows the hens off their roosts! So far, no more casualties. The coop was getting up to 10 degrees higher than the outside temps, so when the temps soared to 106, the coop temp was 116 or so. These fans are keeping it down pretty well so far.