To me, the only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs. Everything else is personal preference. A lot of times if you don’t have a rooster the dominant hen will take on some of his chores.
Is having a rooster beneficial? I don’t have a lot of faith in a rooster actually protecting his flock. There are benefits. A rooster can be an early warning system, especially against hawks, but maybe the dominant hen will do that. Not all roosters are good but I find many roosters will put themselves between the flock and a perceived danger, maybe even go check it out. But once a danger is identified it’s much more likely my roosters will try to lead the flock to safety instead of acting as a rear guard. I’ve had two serious dog attacks and the roosters survived unscathed both times.
Where I find more of a benefit is that a good rooster helps keep peace in his flock. Not all roosters are good but a good rooster will break up fights between other chickens. If you have baby chickens in the flock the dominant rooster will sometimes help Mama raise them and help take care of them. I’ve seen that several times. If you have adolescent cockerels in your flock and they start harassing the adult hens, all the hens do is run toward the dominant rooster. He takes care of junior. The rooster is not that protective of the pullets the same age as that cockerel, they are pretty much on their own, but he does take care of his hens. A good rooster often helps when you integrate, cutting down on some of the fighting. Not all roosters are good though.
I always suggest you keep as few roosters as you can and still meet your goals. It’s not that you are guaranteed problems with roosters, more that the more roosters you have the more likely you are to have problems. I also believe that a lot of the problems that people have with roosters are more perceived problems than actual problems. The biggest problem to me is when a rooster becomes human aggressive. If that happens you need to deal with it severely and aggressively. No hesitation and no sympathy.
It is possible you may have a bad rooster they over-mates the hens or causes bare backs, whether you have one rooster with one hen or one rooster with over 20 hens. There are no magic rations for hens to roosters that avoid these potential problems. But I firmly believe the vast majority of these problems are when people confuse cockerels and pullets with roosters and hens. Adolescent cockerels have hormones running out of control and the pullets mature later so they don’t have any idea what is going on. It can get really rough. As one of our forum members says this phase is not for the faint of heart to watch. But if you can get through that phase they normally mature into a pretty peaceful flock. Or bring in a mature rooster with mature hens.
I keep a rooster because I want fertile eggs. Fertile eggs are part of my goals. If I did not want fertile eggs I would not be feeding a rooster.
