New to BackYard Chickens

Hiya, and welcome to BYC! :frow Good luck with your little chickies!

We have about 6 extra roosters I keep for future breeding. One hangs out on our deck, one paces the yard from coop/pen to coop/pen hoping to get in one of them, and the other four just hang out together. I have also culled a couple of roosters along the way that were psychotic. These are all 8 mos to 3 years old.

There is another old silkie rooster that has three old hens. Fights will only break out should one of those hens wander over by one of these roosters. King, the old buck, puts the others in their place. The rest of the hens are in breeding pens. If there are no hens, this works out much better.

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Welcome to BYC.
I have multiple roosters. Some bantams, some standard. While I do have three seperated into a bachelor flock, the rest are with my hens.
This doesn't always work. I have a bantam flock with 4 females and 4 males all adults from 2 to 4 years old. None of the females are overbred. It works because the oldest rooster is a tough cookie.
A second run has multipe coops with 4 roosters and around 26 hens from 2 to 8 years old. They have a strong old rooster too. You might wonder why the larger flock has a better hen ratio. Not my choice. I let the chickens decide where to roost.
Don't let anyone tell you that your flock won't work. You may have to make changes, correct behavior, and and make more changes. You, like I, will learn as you go.
I no longer worry about conventional "wisdom".
I will advise this, do not let the cockerels overwhelm the hens. They can harm them. You can seperate your males into a pen next door and reintroduce them when they are a little older.
 

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