Rooster trying to mate 10 week olds??

[Justanother Brooke]

Help, I have a very randy rooster (about 6 months old or so), and for the last two weeks, he's been jumping my poor little 6 month old pullets without warning. I have three 10 week old pullets in a separate coop, and have been free ranging them together with supervision for the last couple of day. Well today he pinned my orpington down and was trying to mate her. I immediately broke them up, and put the little girls back in their coop, but I was thinking about moving them to the bigger coop next week...now I'm not so sure. She's terrified, and I definitely don't want her or the other two little ones hurt.
Is this normal?

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Perhaps instead of removing your hens, you could remove the rooster. Put him in rooster jail? All of my roosters go through this annoying stage. I think its just them being immature (your rooster and hens). Both sexes need practice to get the whole mating thing down. As your rooster matures he will settle down quite a bit. If he's bothering the pullets that much, id lock his little butt away until the girlies are willing to accept his advances. I used to have a very large BO/EE roo that was awful to his pullets when he was young, so I locked him away where he couldn't terrorize the girls- he found a tree stump to terrorize instead. And believe me, he would "mate" that stump every chance he got. I reintergrated with the flock when he matured, and he was a perfect gentleman. Good luck!

 

[CrazyChickensEverwhere]

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[Justanother Brooke]

Cracking up about the tree stump! So far I haven't caught Abe mating any inanimate objects, ha ha!
I also wonder if the fact that we currently have 3 cockerels make them worse? Like a competition? They've been having crowing contests, and I have noticed that Abe (the one that's really bad) always runs to the girls as soon as they come out of the coop, before the other boys even have a chance.
Next weekend we will be butchering the two extra roos, so hopefully there will be a little more peace!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Well.....the poor guy only had the stump. I guess he figured he'd get it from wherever he could

. Your other little cockerals may very well be the problem. Again, good luck.