Thoughts on cockerel management?

[LaurenRitz]

I have a mixed flock with both large breeds and bantams. The smallest bantam is the size of a dove. It's fine if they have lots of space with places to hide.


In my experience, the males will force the girls to submit whether they are ready or not. Especially with multiple males, they will take turns holding down an unwilling hen. It's not pleasant. Once you see it, you will have no problem butchering the roosters.

Attacking the young girls who are not ready to mate is one of my zero tolerance behaviors. I get rid of any roo that tries this. In the most recent generations, only those bred outside my flock have shown this behavior. In the first few generations it was quite common, but I seem to have eliminated it.

 

[LaurenRitz]

For the experienced rooster keepers, at what age would you say the cockerels begin to settle down and come off their raging hormone stage?

In my experience, between 24 and 30 weeks. If they haven't settled by 30 weeks, I assume they're not going to.

I let the girls make the decision of who to keep. They won't stick around an abusive rooster if they have a choice, so often the bad ones end up free ranging by themselves. If the hens are wary and run as soon as they see him, he might be a cull, but often tge behavior will moderate at about 24 weeks so I usually keep them at least that long.

I culled one last Saturday, so I let his "replacement" out yesterday. He went nuts for a little while, but by the end of the day he had a couple groupies following him around and he was wing dancing and tit-bitting for the girls.

The flock is calm again.