Should I harvest or cage bullying roosters?

[goats-n-oats]

Hi all, I have 4 young roosters from Cackle, they are about 5-6 months old, and are black copper French marans, rhode island red, barred rock, and maybe black french marans. I ordered them over the summer in a panic because I wanted to be able to breed these breeds if there is any supply chain issues, food shortages, etc. (Yes I'm a nervous prepper.) fast forward six months, several existing hends went broody and now there are about 50 barnyard mix babies. (I gave away at least 40 more.) The issue is, these roosters are real bullies. They literallygang rape my productive hens. One will mount her, bite her neck, while the others stand by and peck at her to keep her from fighting back. One petite hen (in the photos) looks really worn out, today her wing was drooping. Should I harvest these roosters, cage them, or what? Thanks for your input!

 

[WIchickMama]

How many hens do.you have vs pullets/young ones?

 

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

Probably the best option would be to cull or rehome some of those roosters. you really don't know how many more eggs will hatch boys!
you could also make a bachlor pad.

 

[Brooks_]

Should I harvest or cage bullying roosters?​

Yes.

 

[NatJ]

Should I harvest these roosters, cage them, or what?

I would probably harvest them (butcher, then eat.)

If you do not have time to butcher them right now, I would cage them until you do have time. That will give immediate relief to the hens & pullets.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

Cage them, then harvest when you can.
If purity is not important to you, select a good flock raised male from your barnyard mixes. Or find a proven rooster from someone looking to rehome.

 

[KentuckyRooster]

You have to do one or the other. They're going to kill the hens it sounds like. There's too many. If it were me I'd do a bachelor pad, select the nicest ones to keep and butcher the rest.

 

[BDutch]

I understand you have 4 cockerels. But I have no clue on how many pullets/hens you’ve got.

The roosters are quite young and probably too horny to be polite. Their behaviour probably gets better in another 6 months. For now its best to seperate them in another cage + run where the cockerels don’t see the hens. Until the hens have healed.

A ratio of about 1 rooster / 10 adult hens should be okay if there is enough space. How big is the coop + run? Or can they free range in a large garden? 4m2 for each chicken is a good size for coop + run space for normal sized chickens.

1 rooster for 10 hens is enough to get fertilised eggs. So if you have little space, or no more than 10 hens, I would only keep the nicest rooster.

 

[Shadrach]

There are other solutions and if you intend to keep the above amount of chickens then the other solutions, assuming you have the room, will in the long term save you a lot of problems.
Split the group up. Build coops for each group at some distance apart.
Put the hen that is having problems in with the nicest of the cockerels. Wait for the cockerels to grow up and breed your future chickens from these groups.
If you can, put like with like. Not specifically for breeding reasons but for group cohesion.

If you can't do the above then kill the cockerels rather than inprison them. It's not their fault. This is often what a gang of cockerels are like.
I can't help wondering why you started off with so many chickens. 3 or 4 make a good learning flock.

 

[3KillerBs]

This is my holding pen for cull cockerels: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/camp-cockerel.77789/

One of the problems with having a group of males is that they compete for mates. Even if they aren't fighting they will mate a hen that one of the others has just mated as part of their competition for dominance.