When it works as I expect, the rooster quickly switches over to a parental role as if he has to rear his own harem. Interest in sex is suppressed and he gets into a mode where his more concerned with finding food and watching for threats. About half the time I set it up where the group is free-range although more recently I got into doing it with penned groups. I have mixed chicks about two weeks of age with fully adult rooster in pen as the former needed a little brooder action. Fighting rooster used for this because I am more familiar with them. Outcome not unlike what rooster does in link below. It takes rooster a couple days to go through hormone shift I look for. If my understanding, commercial chicken producers in ancient Rome used a similar approach so young chickens could free-range forage for eats prior to advent of complete feeds that would not occur until a little over 100 years ago.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/882368/what-to-look-for-in-a-broody-rooster
When chicks older I have been getting away with roosters that are decidedly immature. The latter case was used to suppress severe fighting among the chicks. Replicated that five times last fall. What I did as place a older cockerel in with a group of younger mixed sex chickens of a fighting chicken brood. When the younger birds fought among themselves which is what I wanted to stop, then the added older cockerel would kick their butts. Key was to put bigger / older bird in pen of younger birds. I also put structures in for smaller birds to avoid larger if they needed to. A few days required for them to rooster together. Really cool things happened later when those groups where released from pen. Older protected younger birds he was housed with every time.
See posts # 16 through 10
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...winter-without-supplemental-heat-in-a-barn/10
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/882368/what-to-look-for-in-a-broody-rooster
When chicks older I have been getting away with roosters that are decidedly immature. The latter case was used to suppress severe fighting among the chicks. Replicated that five times last fall. What I did as place a older cockerel in with a group of younger mixed sex chickens of a fighting chicken brood. When the younger birds fought among themselves which is what I wanted to stop, then the added older cockerel would kick their butts. Key was to put bigger / older bird in pen of younger birds. I also put structures in for smaller birds to avoid larger if they needed to. A few days required for them to rooster together. Really cool things happened later when those groups where released from pen. Older protected younger birds he was housed with every time.
See posts # 16 through 10
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...winter-without-supplemental-heat-in-a-barn/10
