Rooster mounting pullets?

[Ridgerunner]

A 17 week old cockerel and they are doing that well? I think you are doing great. With a cockerel that age I'd expect things to be a lot wilder than that, especially with the older girls. He is still really young, things can still heat up. But my general rule is that of no one is getting hurt, no one is getting hurt. Another rule is that if they are together and life is good leave them together. Don't fix something that is not broken, you might break it.

Continue to watch them. As he goes through puberty you may need to step in. Go by what you see. You may need to fix something at some point. You never know with living animals.

Good luck.

 

[Cinnamon11]

Yes, he did and he seems to leave all of the other hens and pullets alone after they've shaken him off. He'll just strut around the yard for a moment or two

I've yet to see him try and mount the 15 week old pullets, but I might isolate them for a bit if I did. One day I walked out to the coop and run area to check on them (I work from home at the moment and "watch" them pretty much all day) a few weeks ago to find one of the Orpingtons laying on the ground in the coop seemingly unable to get up. At first I thought she'd made a dust bath and was just being lazy, but after a few minutes it was almost like she was hurt? All other chickens were out in the yard pecking around, but she was just laying there. I got a work call, so I had to go inside for a moment, so I quickly closed the coop door so she couldn't get hurt and left her for about 20 minutes. When I came back, she was walking around in the coop and eating like nothing happened. This was about a week and a half ago and at the time I had wondered if the rooster had tried to mount her and had hurt her.




I hope so! I also have 25 week old hens and it took forever and a day for them to start laying! I know everyone says that, but these are leghorns and sexlinks My first/other post here was concern over a few of them not laying BECAUSE they are known to be early layers. Mine were destined to be freeloaders for longer than expected, I suppose

I have a 28 week old leghorn and she still hasn’t laid! I’m still crossing my fingers

 

[Abriana]

With cockerels you just have to watch. If they are letting him then it’s probably okay, but if they seem scared or run from him/hide in the coop or on high places then maybe you will need to separate for a little while. With my first flock (all the same age) I never had a problem, but when I brought cockerels into a flock they terrorized my hens and I had to get rid of them (I would hatch chicks, keep them until I was 100% sure if they were male/female and then give them away). Just playing it by ear is the best thing you can do (especially if he has spurs because those can tear into the hens’ sides, I’ve had a it happen. An excellent solution is to use duct tape on them).