Roosters living together in a "Batchelor's Pad"??

[TurtleFeathers]

Hi all -

I hope I'm posting this in the right place...

I'm just wondering how many of you keep roosters in a "batchelor's pad" type situation, and how well it works? Can they see your hens at all (like thru a fence)? If so, does this cause any competition amongst the roosters? And if you pull a single guy out of the pen to use in a separate breeding pen, how difficult is it to return them to the batchelor pad when he's done breeding?

Thanks so much!

 

[Smoky73]

You can keep roosters in a bachelor pad all together, though there are variousl way to go about it. It works much better to keep roosters together that have grown up together and used to one another from chicks. If you are intoducing birds from different pens- ex. I took all my silkie roosters from breeding pens and put them together, this is different. You will have fighting, due to establishing a pecking order. Most of the time, the fighting does not last more than a day or two. Try to introduce if they are the same size. try to introduce the same breed together or same "color". My silkie roosters will not intergrate if they are different colors, some colors will segregate themselves by groups of colors and do not adjust well to colored outsiders that look different.
If you pull one out for breeding and want to later reintroduce him to the boys, the best way I have found is move MANY of the bachelor roosters out of the pen into a seperate area for a few days. It is ideal to introduce several to a pad than just a single. The more the better. So say you have 10 roosters, I would take about 6 out, put them in a different are afor a few days. Then, the single one you had for breeding, take him but him back inot the pad, along with the other 6. this way the reintroductions will be more than existing pad members, even though tey were all pad birds prior.
Or, another way to do it is to reintroduce the single breeder bird, and watch for the agressors. Once you see who is causing problems, take that bird or birds away and isolate them for a few days, then reintroduce.

OF COURSE, YOU could also just throw them all together and let them fight it out and pray it wont be serious. I have done that as well, but prefer it the other way.

 

[SunshineSilkies]

I do the same thing as Cara...Seems I always have a large pen of boys!

 

[kathyinmo]

I currently have 4 pens of roosters. Each has 6 - 8 boys. They all grew up together, and I haven't had a problem with them. They can not see any of the girls, as they are located on the back side of my breeder barn.

I did have a bad experience when I moved one rooster into a pen that had 7 others. They killed him the first day. I have changed how I do that now. If I want to add one, I take several boys and move them all to a new location that they are not familiar with, so they are all new to the pen. This seems to work better.

 

[cashdl]

I have a bachelor pad but they are my grow out roos. Either they will get their own breeding pen, get sold, or get eaten. I will add a new roo from time to time but they are always 3 months old so they are babies and non threatening to the other roos various status. No one fights. I don't keep my breeding roos together. They each have their own pen with girls.

Lanae

 

[flgardengirl]

I have 2 roo bachelor pads. I need to make another one too lol. I agree, if they grew up together, there won't be as might fighting. They may have some small squabbles but the lead roo seems to keep them all in line.

ETA: The new location thing might work with roos because I just recently put 30 hens from different groups all into the same pen. 6 of the hens grew up together and that pen/coop was their home.
I put some new large items like brightly colored milk crates in there to make it look different to the old hens. Then a few days before I moved them all in, I let all the different groups free range together for about 4 hrs each day. Then I added all the new hens to the main pen in the evening before bed. It took two nights that I had to put them manually into the coop because they didnt want to sleep in there. The third night they all went in by themselves. Just make sure to put several waterers and feeders out so the chickens who are the lowest on the totem pole can still eat. Often times the highest in the pecking order will hog the food and water and chase away the other ones. It seems to be working out okay so far.

 

[ChickenFamilyof5]

I do the same thing, have the roosters in their owns pens, and take them to visit the girls twice a week, then back to their pad. It's a causual relationship they have with the girls.....lol

 

[kathyinmo]

Quote:
I have found this is imperative. I have 3 feeding and 3 watering stations in my pens. It is a royal pain, but I believe it has to be done.

 

[Illia]

I have a pen that is 200' by 150'. It is chock full of boys, (well, about 10 really) and used to have 20 or so. . . They all do just fine, and even when it comes time to pair em off, I just let them in their breeding pen (little area inside the bachelor pad) let them do their thing, remove the hen, then let them out on their own time. After a while they get so associated with breeding pen = breeding that they constantly go in there (I leave the door open when not in use) and chatter to me, waiting for a hen.

Yes, they can see the hens - The entire back end of the bachelor pad looks out to the 3 acres that the hens enjoy, and the boys have never flown over or fought because of that.

Really the only difficulties is getting some roosters to just do the job and stop constantly charming the hen, because I can never quite get some hens to be comfortable with the situation. (But of course, who WOULD be comfortable in such situation?) But there's quite a few who do very well though - Especially girls who usually only see the same rooster each time.

 

[Doug the Chicken Man]

We do it somewhat simular but it also depends on the temprament of the Roosters involved.

We had one Roo who was super aggressive and tried to kill any other male that even came close to his zone of influence. we had to have hime in his own pen with no other chickens for about amonth then added 5 girls. We could never integrate him with any other roos.

Other roos we have live happily in a pen beside the hens. the only issue we have is in spring when hormones start going we have to keep an eye out for aggressive behaviour.

Now we are building a penn for each breed and variety with a smaller roo coop. This will give us less issues I hope.