New Rooster

[Pure Poultry]

When we get our new Light Sussex can we put it in the pen with two Pekin hens or when he be a bit rough when the bantams??

 

[Ridgerunner]

How old are the chickens? Are you talking about mature consenting adults or are you talking about hormonal adolescents? Age is very important in how they will act. It’s even more important since you have bantam females and a full sized male.

 

[dekel18042]

When we get our new Light Sussex can we put it in the pen with two Pekin hens or when he be a bit rough when the bantams??

Will ha have any of his own sized hens? I admit to being neurotic, but after seeing size differential first hand, I might leave my bantam rooster with the full size hens but never the bantam hens with my roosters My full sized fowl are literally five times larger.

 

[torilovessmiles]

A lot of people make it work, but I'm keeping my bantams and standards separate. Even though my rooster is a gentleman, he weights like 9 pounds! I wouldn't feel comfortable having a big roo with my teenie tiny bantams. Mine are sebrights, silkies, and a booted bantam.
Just my opinion; I'm interested to see what other people think about it!

 

[Ridgerunner]

When chickens mate the hen squats on the ground. This gets the rooster’s weight into the ground through her entire body, not just the legs. That way a rooster can be heavier than the hen. Roosters of the same breed are practically always heavier than the hens, sometimes quite a bit. Many people have full-sized roosters with bantam hens and don’t have problems.

But I fully agree, size difference matters. The more size difference the bigger the potential for problems. Some bantams are a whole lot smaller than others. Some full-sized roosters are bigger than others. Size difference is a good a point.

Mature adult chickens normally go through the mating ritual where it is not really violent. Not always but normally. The chances of injury are a lot less than immature cockerels mating immature pullets. With adolescents hormones are going crazy, the cockerels have not learned any self-control, and the pullets often don’t do their part so it can get pretty violent. That’s why age of males and females both is so important.