Roosters and pullets

[Flockincrazy]

I have 5 12 week and 4 14 week old pullets and 2 horny 14 week cockerals. I have been only allowing the cockerals to be around my egg laying hens, but it's quite inconvenient as I don't have a separate coop and run. The cockerals have not attempted to mate with the mature hens yet, but they have with the young ones, which is why I kept them separated. Today a let the whole flock be together for awhile. The cockerals went after the young ones as expected, but my run gives 35 sq ft per bird and they didn't seem stressed keeping away. Should I keep them separated as have been or let them sqauble it out? My biggest concern would be what happens in the coop. There is much less space to avoid being mated.

If they are not hurting the pullets the younger ones I wouldn't worry I had the same issue with my new flock but they are good now and noone was hurt are your roo's alot bigger are they gonna hurt them if they mount them and imo if you keep separating them and then put them back together at this point in there life it is probably worse i would just leave them together and get more there isn't enough for both they should have at least 8-10girls per roo that way they are not over breeding and trying to get busy every 5sec

 

[tsperry88]

Keeping just this one might work out, at least for now.
But time will come he will be on the prowl too.

Lots of nice roosts in the run, but some things on the ground to break lines of sight might help even more.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-cluttered-run.1323792/

I added some clutter.

 

[tsperry88]

If they are not hurting the pullets the younger ones I wouldn't worry I had the same issue with my new flock but they are good now and noone was hurt are your roo's alot bigger are they gonna hurt them if they mount them and imo if you keep separating them and then put them back together at this point in there life it is probably worse i would just leave them together and get more there isn't enough for both they should have at least 8-10girls per roo that way they are not over breeding and trying to get busy every 5sec

They grew a lot faster than the rest of their age group and started attempted mating at 12 weeks. I had a fenced off section of the coop that I would alternate roosters and young pullets so all had time in the run.

 

[tsperry88]

The clutter up jungle gym coop set up has worked well so far. The pullets have learned to avoid the rooster when they make advances and there are enough of them that they don't seem stressed at all. They seem much happier than spending half the day in a 4x8 pen inside the coop. I need to get rid of a few rooster though if anybody in northern VA wants one. I know someone who ordered a straight run earlier this year and didn't get a rooster like he wanted, so one might be taken.