New roo overmating ONE hen...please help

[Shannon's Chix]

I just got a new roo and put him with my 5 girls almost a week ago. I don't know his exact age but I know he's fairly young. He is mating my oldest hen to the point where her little head is going bald! I don't know what it is about her, the last roo I had I got rid of because he was overmating this same hen! All the other girls are laying now, I saw him try to mate another one once but she wasn't having it. I REALLY don't want to get rid of another roo but I don't want to compromise this poor girl!

Instead of isolating him again, I put her in my isolation 4x4 coop which has a small run. She was quite upset so I put another one of the girls in with her and she's calmed down a bit. I am hoping if the others are all he has he may realize he doesn't just have to "do" (excuse lol) her all the time. Will this work? Any other ideas would be MUCH appreciated! I am really hoping to incubate some eggs soon so I'd rather not isolate him, but will if I have to...

 

[Dar]

is she the most submissive hen? maybe the other hens are to high up in rank to allow him to spread the love around...

 

[twister]

similar situation here. I purchased a hen saddle with wing protectors for that one overmated hen. He did not like her too much with the clothing on.... ;-) fixed his little red wagon.

 

[onthespot]

That would be my best suggestion. Not sure how big his area is, but you could try confining him and the other hens in a smaller pen, I would suggest MUCH smaller, a cage really, so they can't really get away and just must submit. I have had to do that with some hens with young roos just to shorting the learning curve time period and just get those eggs fertilized sooner. Some hens can just buffalo the younger roo for months even while he learns to get up the courage to figure out how to make them submit. Another thing you could try, is keep the roo separate and just let him have a short time every day with the girls, during which you let him mate your one hen once, then remove her to a holding cage, leave him in with the other hens, and after a half hour or what have you, take him out until tomorrow, and return your hen to the flock, bred, but not overbred. That might work too.

 

[Shannon's Chix]

Thanks! Such great ideas I hadn't thought of...that's why I love this site!

I think I'll try a bit of several suggestions, starting with separating him so poor MaryJane can go back to her home! I think I'll try putting my ee in the little coop with him for a bit and see how it goes...I want to incubate some of those gorgeous green eggs! I'll keep a cage on standby...

Thanks again! I feel much better!

 

[gsim]

For my money, I would just do the hen saddle and let romeo look elsewhere.

No way I would tolerate a condition where a member of my flock is in misery. I have a runt that is lame and early on I educated another hen about picking on her if I was around. Both times was in evening and runt had already located a spot on roost before the bully came in and when I saw her pecking the runt , both times I smacked her behind her head and knocked her off roost and killed the lights. Let her spend the night on the floor. Did it twice and have not seen it again.

Coop and run are both so large that only at bedtime is there anything where they are close enough to each other to be doing any fighting. Close, tight, cramped quarters are the worst for all kinds of bad behavior. But your romeo would be perstering your poor hen even if they were in an acre pen regardless.