Rooster and Hens in adjacent pens?

[aart]

Is housing rooster(s) in pens adjacent to hens pens, separated only by chicken wire 'wall', a problem waiting to happen?

Experienced opinions appreciated.

 

[aart]

bump

 

[chooks4life]

In my experience with chooks I've bred and raised, and chooks others have bred and raised that I've gotten as adults, yes, it is a problem waiting to happen. Just seeing eachother but not interacting freely has only a limited amount of social value. Attitudes will change when there are no longer any barriers.

If you keep your different gender and age and breed birds separate as a rule for a good few generations, you risk developing a strain that loses their ability to tolerate and safely interact with birds of different ages/genders and appearances/breeds. You can breed a rooster who doesn't know what a hen is, and hens that don't know what roosters or babies are. You can even breed roosters who are attracted to roosters only and think hens are juveniles or a different species. And mating is distressing for some hens who don't have a clue what a rooster is.

There's no guarantee that will happen but I have had all those problems from birds others raised in artificial environments. Interestingly, non broody birds can learn from watching, and clueless roosters can also learn from watching. But that generally takes about a year.

I'm a devotee of the as natural as possible social and lifestyle method of keeping them. You can have a peaceful flock of all ages, breeds, genders, species, etc, it's not impossible by any means.

 

[aart]

Thanks for your detailed feedback....this would probably be a shorter term situation than several generations...I probably should have stated that, sorry.

Would like fertile eggs but will only have 3-6 hens, which is probably not be enough for a rooster...and the rooster I'm contemplating may be rogue.

 

[chooks4life]

I think one hen's a good enough start for any rooster, and any more than that's a bonus! lol. Really the number of hens any rooster 'needs' is directly inverse to his level of instinct. A really instinctive rooster will be so caught up helping raise his offspring he will ignore other hens. A rooster who's had the instinct largely bred out of him will only be good for one thing... Ok, two: mating, and spitroasting. The more artificially reared and isolated generations in a roo's ancestry, the greater chance that he can't cope with less hens than a more naturally bred/more instinctive one, who can cope with just one.

Sometimes we all have to keep roosters and hens separate for whatever the reason may be. I think that if you experience prolonged or severe issues when you re-integrate them, you should consider the troublemaker as maybe not being 'quite right' in the instinct/intelligence department, and if the trouble persists, do away with it, whether that means culling or re-homing. But that's just what I do, it may not be suitable for you.