Roosters being mean to the hens

[opbado]

this is my first time raising chickens & I have five buff orps.s hens five white leg horn hens & three white leg horn cockrels they are 14 weeks old . and I let them free range
in my back yard all day & then in the late after noon I put them in thier run and of corst they go in there hen house when it gets dark . I put them in there runand all of a sudden two of the cockrels started biting some of the hens real hard behind the neck . is this how they catch them when they go to mate them it did not seem
like he tried to mate them he just bit them real hard. is this normal . I plan on culling to of the rooters I just didn't think they would sart trying to mate them when they were this young . any answers would be appreciate.

 

[nivtup]

Normal behavior.

They will all be just fine.

 

[M To The Maxx]

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I agree.

 

[happyhens44]

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I agree.

x3

 

[AlbionWood]

I had 12 cockerels with 24 pullets, and when they got to that age, some of the cockerels began doing the same thing. So I pulled the mean ones out and kept them in a separate pen, where they couldn't see the pullets (so they wouldn't fight), until I figured out which ones had the gentlest personality. I now have a really great rooster, the nicest of the bunch, and the others taste great!

With 8 pullets you probably only want one rooster, so over the next few weeks, figure out which one is the best and cull the other two.

 

[Kittymomma]

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Yep, what AlbionWood said. Teenage roos can be rough and randy so what you're seeing is very normal and should get better as the pullets get older and start to squat/submit to the roos, and the roos get their technique down.

Three roos is too many for the number of hens you have though and if you don't remove a couple of the roos you will still continue to have problems. The roos will overmate the hens and because they'll be competing with each other they'll also be much more likely to be rough with the hens.

You can either try to rehome your extra roos (hard to do) rehome them into the crockpot (hard for many folks to do, but oh so yummy! or if you have the space and inclinaton you could build a bachelor pad for the ones you don't need.