Rooster mounting another rooster

[Freyadog]

My hens are in the hen house and run. The roosters run free for the moment. I have a rooster who is chasing down another rooster and mounting him. What do I do?

 

[arlee453]

They are working out the pecking order.

Let it be, UNLESS it gets violent to the point of a bloody fight.

If they draw blood and continually fight, you'll have to get rid of one of the roosters to restore peace.

 

[Freyadog]

Susan
You mean that 1 rooster will mount another rooster like he does the hens? Is this actually establishing a pecking order since these roosters have been together for 5 months or is this something else entirely?

I did separate the roosters this evening. The one doing all the chasing had the other one down in the tall grass just going to town on him. AFter he mounted him he got off and was pekcing the fire out of him to where the second rooster wasnt even moving I thought he was dead.

 

[arlee453]

Yes, the roosters will jump on each other to dominate the other.

Sounds like the submissive rooster was doing the right things - being VERY submissive and letting the top dog know he was the boss.

If you have a very bossy rooster, he may not leave it alone when the subordinate submits, and will continue to beat him up even when he's down. In that case, to prevent bloodshed, you'll have to separate them out permanetly.

Everytime you try to put them back together you'll just have the same thing happen again.

And 5 months is about the right age for a rooster to be getting through puberty and working out the pecking order.

 

[Freyadog]

Quote:
thank you for the insight on roo behaviour. had no idea that it would last this long.

 

[SaraJean0989]

They are working out the pecking order.

Let it be, UNLESS it gets violent to the point of a bloody fight.

If they draw blood and continually fight, you'll have to get rid of one of the roosters to restore peace.

Sorry for the 10 years later quote but I googled it and you guys’ thread showed up.. I have roosters starting this same behavior, ended up with WAY too many rooster for the amount of hens I actually got out of my “started pullets” order. But I have most of the scheduled to be butchered. There is one really sweet submissive rooster that I’d hate to butcher bc he is so sweet, but I have a Australorp that has already established dominance over the 9 hens I have. Right now the submisssive rooster is separated from everyone because he wasn’t going to make it with the other roosters going after him the way they had been (I never witnessed the Australorp go after him). I was hoping once the other 8 roosters were gone I’d be able to reintroduce Fred (the submissive guy) to the group and him and the Australorp could keep their separate corners and live in peace.

IF I have to choose one or the other, would Fred be able to establish dominance over my hens at this point, I want to keep a rooster to keep my hens from turning on each other. I got them all the end of May and they were sold as 10-12 weeks old.

 

[Brightside1]

Keep the other roo as a house pet. I do.

 

[Mrs. K]

They don't call it cock fighting for nothing. Pick one, and go with it. Unless you have the space for 20-30 hens, multiple roosters need a LOT OF ROOM.

Wishing they would just all be nice, seldom works for roosters. They really do not get sharing hens, or these are my hens, those are yours. Multiple roosters generally add a lot of tension to the flock.

Mrs K