Three of Six Chicks are Male

[Amoen]

I purchased 6 chicks from a feed store late March and 3 of them appear to be roosters. My question is, can I keep all 6 of them peacefully? They seem very attached to each other and I would be sad to to have to get rid of the roosters. I have attached a pic of one of the boys just in case I’m wrong about the sex.

 

[featheredplanets]

Welcome to BYC

Probably not. The 3 boys will overbreed the 3 girls and cause more stress than they’re worth. Even 1 cockerel to 3 pullets is a bit much, but it can work if the cockerel has a good attitude.

If you don’t want to rehome at least 2 of your cockerels, you may want to look into a bachelor flock, basically keeping the males separate from the females, it saves your girls stress but you can still keep your boys as pets.

And yep, the chicken pictured is male.

 

[keesmom]

Can you keep them together? Probably not, especially if you plan on keeping them in a confined coop and run.

You can rehome most/all of the cockerels or keep all 3 in a bachelor pad. Our extra males end up in the freezer but I expect that's not something you want to do.

 

[Amoen]

Thanks for the insight! I truly appreciate your quick responses.

 

[Mrs. K]

Roosters take a lot of experience. And eventually you could have multiple roosters, as in a large multi-generational flock. In smaller flocks, or flocks of just flock mates, not such a good deal. Roosters take more space.

Roosters raised with just flock mates rapidly outgrow the pullets, become sexually active long before the pullets are ready. Father/son rooster pairs tend to work better, but there is no for sure, failsafe plan for roosters.

Sometimes they begin to fight very early, sometimes they get a long until they have a knockdown drag out, sometimes once is enough, some will fight every day until one is dead. This is very upsetting to people and to the pullets.

If you have a only 6 birds, none of them should be roosters in my opinion.

Mrs K