Ratio Roosters per hens

[havingfun]

I have 2 roosters and 35 hens. My issue is competition. Seems like everytime one rooster has his way with a hen the other one comes running and tries to separate them or mates right after. I have a couple of hens suffering because of this. They are two different breeds one is Speckled Sussex and the other is Golden Laced Wyandotte. Does anyone have any theories.

 

[sourland]

Everyone wants the pretty girl.

Each rooster wants to assure that it is his sperm that fertilizes the egg assuring that his DNA carries on. Sometimes a more inept rooster will take advantage of the fact that another rooster has caused the hen to submit. Such behavior is more typical in younger roosters. If yours are young, they may outgrow this behavior as they mature.

 

[Blue]

I think it also depends on the roosters. I had a big silver-duckwing rooster and an old English game bantam roo the same color (I called him Mini-Me for that reason ^_^) who both lived very well together with maybe 7 or 8 hens. The big roo had all the hens except for one; he let Mini-Me have that one hen who was a bit smaller than the rest. It was funny to watch both roos sit side-by-side and crow together.

 

[Lbrad7]

Sounds to me like you have a pretty good ratio with 2 roos taking care of 35 hens. I agree with the other post in that they will calm down as they age.

Let the boys have their fun. If they get too rough or you have hens that are suffering, you may want to looking into putting a saddle on the girls who are getting a little too much attention.

 

[havingfun]

Thanks they are young roosters just born in April the 2 hens that seem to be suffering the most I have put in their own area for now until it get to cold to be separate from the rest.

 

[Yazzo]

People always put a number on this, but it really just depends on the rooster. With a more dominating rooster, you'll have to have more hens, to avoid injury, and with a more docile rooster, you can have fewer (and must have fewer if you plan on having chicks). Right now, I have 5, yes, 5 roosters with about 20 hens. This works because there's one lead rooster and four other, very, very docile, tame roosters, who don't even mate with any hens. The lead rooster is so gentle though, I could have him with just 1 hen, or 50 hens.

 

[Catstar68]

I have 2 roosters with 25 girls and they do well. They are brothers though and get along well and seem to have an arrangement with who's got what girls. My other flock of 13 has one older rooster and he doesn't share

While the flocks forage together, they go to their separate coops in the evening and the boys each tend to their own girls. The older rooster (the other roosters' father) does seem to think it his his responsibility to look after everyone and finds treats for whoever might be around at the time. The younger ones have a few things to learn still, they are a bit selfish with treats at times.