Roosters to hens ratio

[Mrs. K]

We all keep chickens.... and when we give advice, we tend to share our own experiences.

We all keep chickens....differently. What will work on one place, one setup, will be a disaster in another set up, mostly depending on space.

So space is the key issue, and it directly influences the amount of birds you have.

Mrs K

 

[BigBlueHen53]

First of all: it is "All y'all".
Second: The actual act is more of a bumpity brush rather than as most land bound mammals do...
The way to tell if the rooster was successful is the hen will stand up, fluff up, shake up, and then look up....as if to say "Nuthin to see here fella..."

First of all... I didn't expect ALL y'all to tell me what ONE of y'all could tell me...
And secondly, I've had chickens a total of about 20 years, so I can certainly tell when a rooster has completed his task! But I've never heard it explained quite this way, so thanks for the edyoumication.

 

[Mosey2003]

I would get rid of all three males. Obviously they're young, since you've just determined their sexes. When their hormones fully hit, you're going to have them fighting with each other and breeding the pullets half to death.

Personally, I would not keep a rooster under the age of 18 months with fewer than 5 hens/pullets.

If you want to keep all three males, I would add approximately 25 pullets. And hope you have a very large area for them all the range.

 

[aart]

I did, and still am lol. It's the only way to really learn. And honestly, it went way better than what I was prepped for. What was hard was having one young cockerel and two domineering pullets who bullied the young cockerel, males are not always the trouble they are made out to be.

How old are they now.....and how much space do you have?

These are two things that are often left out when someone says,
(not just you @Trevorusn, please don't take it personally )
"my x number of roosters get along great!"

There are other variables to take into account also as @BigBlueHen53 mentioned.
Especially if keeper is a pet keeper or a food raisier.

I'm a food raiser and hatch new layers every year, I eat all the cockerels.
I only need one male for my chicken keeping goals.

 

[Headhen3]

I have 6 roosters right now. They each have their own harem of hens. I have between 80 and 100 total chickens. One summer I took in a couple of unwanted Roos and then I accidentally got two more as grab bag chicks. BUT the very first roo I had was a homicidal sociopathic bad ass that I had to put down because he would attack anyone near the barn. The Roos I have lost over the years always died defending the girls. I worry much less when a group of hens is out when they have a roo with them. This batch pretty much get along they have worked out their issues without me seeing a lot of fighting or blood.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Notice the date on that article, 1997. Twenty-two years ago. Do you really think that if there were anything to it this would be standard practice in the commercial chicken industry by now? Some things just fail the common sense test.

Certain myths just won't go away. You really cannot feather-sex all chicks the day they are hatched. You cannot control the sex of the chicks by whether the egg is rounded or pointy. You cannot control the sex of the chick by the temperature of incubation. But these myths won't die.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Science has that answer, it's the genetics the hen gives the egg before it is fertilized. So the study should take that into account and look at what happens inside the hen to see if they can affect that. If you look at anything after that, well have you heard the phrase about locking the barn door after the horse is stolen?

Another possible approach would be to look at testing the egg after it is laid to determine sex. That way you would know which ones to incubate and you could sell the other eggs to a bakery or dog food company. It would have to be really inexpensive and totally automated for the volume they would need, but maybe DNA or some type of chemical test. I believe they are looking into something like this, I believe there is supposed to be some chemical difference in fluids once the embryo starts developing, which it does even before the egg is laid. But these commercial hatcheries may hatch 1,000,000 chicks a week. That's the scale they are looking at to make it commercial.

I'm all for studies but I think they should be based on science.

 

[NatJ]

Question about the article: how much slower do male meat breed chickens grow than females? I of course knew that the egg industry euthanizes male chicks by the billions, but had no idea that meat producers ALSO raise exclusively female birds!!

This article?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51301915
Males grow faster than females, when they're the same kind.
The male chicks that are "not wanted for meat or eggs" are the egg-type males. They will never lay eggs (being male), and do not grow fast enough or large enough to be wanted for meat.

The meat industry definitely DOES raise male chicks. I think they raise the females too, but I'm positive about the males because I've found occasional testicles inside store-bought chickens.

 

[Vicker]

"If you can't handle roosters, you shouldn't have chickens"-I could say the opposite: If you can't handle culling, you shouldn't have chickens. But I don't care if you want to have a bunch of roosters or not. For those of us who keep chickens as an animal husbandry activity, it's not about being able to handle roosters or not. I manage the flock to keep the birds as healthy and stress-free as possible. Each rooster I unintentionally purchase with a group of chicks sold as pullets gets a chance. If it stresses out the hens, it goes to live somewhere else or goes to feed my family. There's nothing cruel about the decision. They are not mistreated. I've had roosters that lived their lives out here with little problem. I've had more that created too much stress and did not protect the flock. To each his own.

 

[redrooster99]

No I would recommend 6-8 hens per rooster, ideally. The roosters will tear a hens back up by over breeding.