Rooster Pens?

[skunknchatter]

Does anyone have separate pens for their roosters? I like to hatch a few batches of eggs each year but having my roosters in with my hens year round just leaves me with rough looking and harassed chickens missing their back feathers.

If you have pictures handy of your breeding pens or rooster pens, or even advice/tips on size and design, please share. I'm totally jealous of my friends "roosterless" flocks cause their girls are so fluffy and relaxed. But I also still want the option of fertile eggs. TIA.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How many hens and roosters are you talking about? That information could help in different ways.

What you are talking about is a bachelor pad. I sometimes isolate cockerels in a shelter and run when they get too active with the flock and keep them there until they are butcher size. It works well. All you need is a shelter to protect them from your weather and a run big enough so they are not overcrowded. You obviously do not need nests in that shelter but you should have roosts.

Why do you keep several roosters with your hens? Depending on how many hens you have you may only need one or two for fertile eggs. Do you care which rooster is the father of the chicks? Many people only want to breed their "best" rooster. Do you want to pair certain roosters with certain hens? Depending on what you want there are a lot of different ways you could approach this. It would be a lot easier to respond if I knew some details of what you want.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

A lot is going to depend on what you have to work with. These were taken while we were still building. This space was originally an open lean-to that was completely stacked to the ceiling with trash/metal (guy we bought it from hoarded everything). We cleaned it out and converted it to three pens and an area for feed/storage. The last pen on the end is my new brooder room where I put the broody hens and raise chicks. The middle one is my “butcher pen” where I put my cockerels that I hatch out so they can’t get to my hens and the closest one to the end door that you can’t see is for my layers and one rooster I keep with them. It’s not perfect, but my husband and did all of the work ourselves. The pictures again are not the finished project so they don’t show the industrial Ag grade ventilation fans we installed, additional regular horse stall fans in each pen for the summer, finished covering the end wall with metal, added 2x4 roosts and another window we added on the far end so it’s not so dark down there during the day. We also added nesting boxes to the butcher pen. We keep the boxes blocked off while the cockerels are in there. When we butcher the them up for the year we open up the nesting boxes and the little door on the divider wall between the butcher and laying pens. That way the girls can use the empty pen during the winter. It’s just nice for the girls to have more indoor space when it’s -20F with 40mph winds to prevent any behavioral problems. Both the butcher and laying pen have doors that can be opened to lead to a 6’ tall fenced area that is I can’t remember, but either 60x40’ or 60x60’. Either way plenty of space to keep the boys from getting too aggressive with each other being penned up. I only keep the butcher pens door open to that area and the hens free range during the day.

 

[skunknchatter]

Thanks for the info so far you guys.

Here is a little more info. I've got two roosters, one with each flock of chickens. I have a more aggressive flock and a more docile flock. I've split them up for ease of introducing new chickens based on personality and to avoid feather picking and other aggressive behaviors. I split them about 3 years ago and it's worked well.

One rooster has 8 hens the other has 5 and my turkey pair also live with that flock.

I keep both of my roosters because they are from a line I want to keep going in my flock.

So do you guys keep roosters together when there aren't any hens they can see?

I also like the idea of a brood pen for my turkey to set eggs in cause this year I had to take the chicks and poults she hatched so the chickens didn't harass them and they didn't slip out of the larger openings in the coop panels.

Lastly, having a place to raise cockrels until they are big enough to butcher would be good. Since we hatch our own here we always have a few boys that need to go to the freezer. Can these younger boys hang with my "keeper" roosters in the bachelor pen or do they need a separate area?

I've had chickens for a while but, until these two (both roosters are 2 years old) my roosters haven't been this rough on my hens. This is the first time in 16 years I've contemplated separating them out.

 

[sdm111]

Look into the way gamefowl breeders do it.

 

[PoppasGrill]

We’ve been talking about a bachelor coop for a while, but other necessities always get in the way.
We don’t butcher our roosters, which means we have way too many and sometimes have to lock away some hens as the boys target certain hens in packs. We know it’s stressful on the girls so we try to isolate a few at a time to give them a break. Sometimes they appreciate it, other times they are backing themselves up to the fence trying to get the boys to notice them.
As it stands now we are doing renovations on the barn to have a bigger area for the girls and plan on renovating the old coops into our bachelor coop.
The whole flock free ranges now, so when we are able to lock up some of the boys our girls will dance out in front of the coop, even if they normally don’t go in that area of the yard, so can only assume it’s intentional.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I keep both of my roosters because they are from a line I want to keep going in my flock.

Excellent reason.

having a place to raise cockrels until they are big enough to butcher would be good. Since we hatch our own here we always have a few boys that need to go to the freezer.

I have one flock, consisting of one mature rooster and 6 to 8 hens, it can change each year. I hatch around 45 chicks a year, some for replacements but most for eating. I eat both boys and girls. I have one 8' x 12' coop, two 4' x 8' shelters, an enclosed 12' x 32' run, and over 2,000 square feet inside electric netting. Occasionally I bring in chicks to the flock to maintain genetic diversity. When I do that I may bring in 15 to 20 cockerels as day-old chicks and keep only as a replacement for my rooster. I've had 20 cockerels going through puberty roaming with my main flock until butcher age, 16 to 23 weeks.

Every three or four years the boys get rowdy enough that I isolate a dozen or so until they get to butcher age. The other years they stay with the flock. That's based on personality, not numbers. I try to go by what I see, not what I might see.

Can these younger boys hang with my "keeper" roosters in the bachelor pen or do they need a separate area?

From personal experience, I don't know. From reading stories on this forum, some people do that but I don't know the details of "how" they do that. Many roosters will take care of chicks. There was a story on here a day or two ago where a rooster was killing chicks. I think that is something you'll have to try on your own as you might get different mileage each year, similar to this being the first year your roosters have that rough with the hens. As always with chickens and their behaviors, the more room the better your odds but you never get guarantees.

 

[NagemTX]

I have about 10 to 15 roosters that are out together most days with their respective flocks. No problems between roosters. Alot are juveniles at the moment with a handful of adults that are 1 to 3 years old. Most of them get along when out. The 6month olds pick on each other some but the adults break them up if it seems like it's getting out of hand. The free range is 1 acer and I have a little over 100 birds right now.

Did have one rooster that was killing chicks that I sold off. All the ones I have now treat the chicks well and will get between an aggressive hen and chicks if need be. I also think I've been very lucky with my roosters and their behavior!

Breeds I have are Phoenix, Spitzhauben, Ameraucana, Rosecomb, Sebright, Bantam Cochin, Bantam EE, Silkies, OEGB and one D'uccle.

 

[PoppasGrill]

I have about 10 to 15 roosters that are out together most days with their respective flocks. No problems between roosters. Alot are juveniles at the moment with a handful of adults that are 1 to 3 years old. Most of them get along when out. The 6month olds pick on each other some but the adults break them up if it seems like it's getting out of hand. The free range is 1 acer and I have a little over 100 birds right now.

We are in kinda the same place with this, we have 15-18 Roosters and over 100 hens.
This last batch of chicks we got at the end of last year from Rural King , out of 26 chicks of mix breeds, 9 turned out to be Roosters and for some reason are not nice to the girls. They chase the girls off and eat first, are very rough mating and rape in packs.
Our older Roosters are the more generous ones and we were hoping the tweens would learn from them, but that didn’t happen.
They rarely fight each other so thinking they should be okay in the same coop.

 

[SourRoses]

A lot is going to depend on what you have to work with. These were taken while we were still building. This space was originally an open lean-to that was completely stacked to the ceiling with trash/metal (guy we bought it from hoarded everything). We cleaned it out and converted it to three pens and an area for feed/storage. The last pen on the end is my new brooder room where I put the broody hens and raise chicks. The middle one is my “butcher pen” where I put my cockerels that I hatch out so they can’t get to my hens and the closest one to the end door that you can’t see is for my layers and one rooster I keep with them. It’s not perfect, but my husband and did all of the work ourselves. The pictures again are not the finished project so they don’t show the industrial Ag grade ventilation fans we installed, additional regular horse stall fans in each pen for the summer, finished covering the end wall with metal, added 2x4 roosts and another window we added on the far end so it’s not so dark down there during the day. We also added nesting boxes to the butcher pen. We keep the boxes blocked off while the cockerels are in there. When we butcher the them up for the year we open up the nesting boxes and the little door on the divider wall between the butcher and laying pens. That way the girls can use the empty pen during the winter. It’s just nice for the girls to have more indoor space when it’s -20F with 40mph winds to prevent any behavioral problems. Both the butcher and laying pen have doors that can be opened to lead to a 6’ tall fenced area that is I can’t remember, but either 60x40’ or 60x60’. Either way plenty of space to keep the boys from getting too aggressive with each other being penned up. I only keep the butcher pens door open to that area and the hens free range during the day.
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Wow. Barn. Want.

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Look into the way gamefowl breeders do it.

Army chickens.