Pure rooster pen, any advice?

[Steinagarden]

I have 5 rooster at about the same age in a pen (without any hens), they are about 4 months old all of them. Now I want to put in more roosters; one adult that is about 1 year old and a few others about 10 weeks old.

The oldest one is very calm and friendly with other roosters. He was in the rooster pen earlier without any problems. I am more worried about the 5 others taking on the youngest.

Any advice about how to introduce these so they can live in harmony? Is it a good idea to put the youngest ones with the oldest to make a group of these first and from there put them together with the 5 others? I dont want to stress them more than necessary...

 

[sourland]

That is how I would try to integrate them.

 

[Mrs. K]

This will be a crapshoot - it might work, might be a disaster.

A LOT will depend on how much room you have. On here it is often quoted 4 sq feet for the coop, and 10 sq feet for the run, but in my opinion, you will need more room than that. You are basically close to doubling your flock.

In my experience, not a lot, roosters when it works, tend to have one friend maybe two. So you will probably have several groups in the flock.

Another thing that will help is a lot of clutter in the run. Roosts, pallets, mini walls, hide outs so that birds can get away from each other.

The real thing is, you need a way to separate the birds if they start fighting. They don't call it cock fighting for nothings. A long handled fish net, leather gloves, a dog crate should be close to hand as one never really knows when they will need it.

The crapshoot part of it, is that it can work for a while, then not work. Today's behavior is not a predictor of behavior for next week. Sometimes they will get a long for months or even years, and then it goes to hell. Sometimes they fight once, sort it out, and are fine, and sometimes they live to fight another day.

Sometimes bachelor pads of all roosters are tooted as a way to not have to cull roosters. With the idea, that if the human is willing to pay for their feed, and the expense of a second coop/run, that all will be well. That is not quite true. It can work and it can not work.

Good luck,

Mrs K

 

[Steinagarden]

This will be a crapshoot - it might work, might be a disaster.

A LOT will depend on how much room you have. On here it is often quoted 4 sq feet for the coop, and 10 sq feet for the run, but in my opinion, you will need more room than that. You are basically close to doubling your flock.

In my experience, not a lot, roosters when it works, tend to have one friend maybe two. So you will probably have several groups in the flock.

Another thing that will help is a lot of clutter in the run. Roosts, pallets, mini walls, hide outs so that birds can get away from each other.

The real thing is, you need a way to separate the birds if they start fighting. They don't call it cock fighting for nothings. A long handled fish net, leather gloves, a dog crate should be close to hand as one never really knows when they will need it.

The crapshoot part of it, is that it can work for a while, then not work. Today's behavior is not a predictor of behavior for next week. Sometimes they will get a long for months or even years, and then it goes to hell. Sometimes they fight once, sort it out, and are fine, and sometimes they live to fight another day.

Sometimes bachelor pads of all roosters are tooted as a way to not have to cull roosters. With the idea, that if the human is willing to pay for their feed, and the expense of a second coop/run, that all will be well. That is not quite true. It can work and it can not work.

Good luck,

Mrs K

Thank you for your reply. I only keep the roosters I need for breeding in the future... So it's never a question of keeping them because I dont want to cull them. But its a good idea to have backup roosters if I am not pleased with the one who is with a group of hens, or if my main rooster dies for some reason.

I have never had any troubles with roosters in the same hatch, but it could be more difficult with different ages and different breeds I recon... I have 7 big indoor pens. Would it be a better option to place 2 roosters I know are friends together with a group of hens rather than having a pure rooster pen? I have bad experience with roosters sharing hens though, never any fights, just the poor fellow who is not dominant gets chased alot if he gets to close to the dominant one

 

[Mrs. K]

I think you are going to have to play with this and adjust. There is just not a realistic way to predict what would work best. 7 pens does give you a lot of options.

I thought you had single pen, with an established groups of roosters, and were adding to that. Not necessarily a recipe for a disaster...but definitely a possibility.

With roosters, there just is no way to say, "if you do this, that will happen" with roosters.

Mrs K