Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisiana. Glad you joined.
I have heard that you need a ratio of 8-10 hens for a rooster, but is that PER ROOSTER, or just a recommendation to have a small flock if you decide to have a rooster?
You can read a lot on here. Some people are so stiff and rigid in their belief in magic numbers you read on here that they'd get a hernia if they burped. Some of us are more relaxed. I'm talking about things like square feet per chicken, linear feet of roost per chicken, and brooder temperatures as well as boy to girl ratio. The reality is that we keep them in so many different conditions and climates, for different goals, with different flock make-ups and management techniques, different breeds (which can mean vastly different sizes of the individual birds), and many more differences that there is no one answer that fits us all. The climate difference in Fargo, North Dakota and Miami, Florida can make a difference in many of these.
I understand that people just starting out need some help. They don't have the experience to base anything on. Some of these numbers you see are general guidelines. They are intended to keep most people safe even if they do a few things wrong. An example of that is brooder temperature. You may read to start with a certain temperature (I've seen 90 F, 95 F, and 100 F all given as a starting point) and drop it 5 degrees per week. The intent here is no matter how horrible your brooder is you will be OK temperaturewise as long as you follow this. There are other problems with that too, not just picking a starting point.
Some are situation specific. You often see 4 square feet per chicken in the coop. That works pretty well for most people that are keeping a small flock of all hens that are fully integrated, it can be overkill in warmer climates, but if you plan on integrating or having a broody hen raise chicks with the flock it can be tight. But that can be mitigated by having a lot of room outside and the climate where they can be outside practically all day every day.
I have a pre-laying flock of 14 hens, and 2 roosters.
No you don't. You have a flock with immature cockerels and immature pullets. The behaviors of immature pullets and cockerels can be quite different from the behaviors of mature hens and roosters. Each chicken has its own personality, some never grow up. Shoehorning as many as you can into a small space can make behavioral problems worse or even cause some. From what I've seen the personality of the girls has an effect on how it works out too. I don't necessarily blame the cockerel for everything, but eating him will solve a lot of problems.
What people are calling the jerk phase is when the hormones of puberty take over. This can affect different cockerels at different ages and can be a lot stronger in some than others. What usually happens is that the hormones drives the cockerel to become the dominant flock master. He may fight other cockerels. He typically tries to mate the pullets, older hens too of you have them. With your pullets he is not trying to fertilize the non-existent eggs. The mating act is an act of dominance, the one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or forcibly, and often temporarily. When they are all mature it is often willingly. When they are immature it is usually by force. Sometimes with juveniles it isn't that bad but quite often it can be really hard to watch. It is often violent. I've never had a pullet injured during that phase and I average around 20 pullets per year, but every three or four years it gets violent enough for me to separate out several boys until they reach butcher age. I do have over 3,000 square feet outside and three different coops/shelters with runs I can keep them in. Not everyone has that type of space.
I kind of want to keep both because I've heard their less aggressive towards humans if they have to worry about each other.
I personally put no faith in that.
The cockerels can go through puberty at different ages. The more mature will dominate until the other grows up enough to challenge. Sometimes there never is a challenge, one remains dominant. Sometimes it is a fight to the death, but that's kind of rare if you have enough room. Individual personality makes a difference there. Sometimes if you have enough room they each claim a territory and attract their own harem, staying out of eyesight of each other. Sometimes they work together to manage the flock. They will know which is dominant but sometimes those partnerships can be strange.
One hard thing about this is that the dominant one can suppress the behaviors of the more submissive. This can be behaviors toward the girls or toward humans. Sometimes the rivalry can stir up the dominant one. The sweet submissive one may become an absolute brute when you take the dominant one away and give him the flock. You never know how they will when the flock makeup changes.
What should I do as far as keeping or culling?
Since your goals include hatching I'd keep the one you like most. You are more likely to like his offspring. He is still quite young and you could change your mind or you could wind up not liking either. As long as you don't run into problems there is nothing wrong with keeping both until they give you a reason not to. You need to follow your goals, not mine. Mine will be different from yours. I often suggest you base your decisions on what you see, not what some stranger over the internet like me tells you that you will see. I don't know what you will see but a flock of one rooster and 14 hens would give you a very nice flock and should meet your goals.
