Time's up? Cook the cockerels?

[Meg-in-MT]

For what it's worth.... the lead pullet, a RSL, just beat the living hell out of the biggest bully. He's twice her size, and too big to fit in any of the hiding spots. No blood - but if a cockerel could have his tail between his legs...

I saw many a hen putting the run on cockerels this summer. I loved it

ETA: Oops, started a thought and didn't finish it!

 

[NHMountainMan]

It does sound like you might be a little over excited and have an excess amount of projects planned...

Did my wife put you up to that?

 

[NHMountainMan]

That's not that uncommon. It's not the size of the chicken in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the chicken.

Can't tell you the number of times I've used that quote (almost)..

 

[sourland]

If they were mine, I would separate the cockerels from the pullets to cut down on the aggravation. @EggSighted4Life suggests a plan for managing the breeding pens.

 

[Shadrach]

There is nothing wrong with any of your options.
But, if you enjoy keeping chickens and you intend to do it for the forseeable future there is something that you should take into account that often gets drowned out in the noise of most of the rooster threads.
The first cockerels/roosters is the most difficult stage. Many never get past this stage. They kill or re-home their cockerels and roosters and get some more in the hope they get a 'nice' one.
I've never met a 'nice cockerel. Ime they all act up at some point, granted some more than others but if your cockerel doesn't misbehave at some point between 3 months and around 14 months there is something wrong with him. It's what they do.
If you pick one you like for whatever reason and stick with him then when he grows up and assuming you let him breed with his hens, if you let a hen or two sit and hatch the next males will learn from the original and senior rooster. Now you're in business and you're in a position to proactive rather than reactive with the progeny of the senior rooster.
The next generation of males will still misbehave but you won't have to deal with it in most cases; the senior rooster takes care of it. If you've learn't and adapted to the senior rooster and the relationship is good not only won't you have to deal with the new males behaviour towards the hens, you probably won't have to deal with the new males showing any aggression towards you either.
It's putting in the work with the first one that reaps benefits.
Many just don't get past the reactive stage unfortunately.

 

[so lucky]

For what it's worth.... the lead pullet, a RSL, just beat the living hell out of the biggest bully. He's twice her size, and too big to fit in any of the hiding spots. No blood - but if a cockerel could have his tail between his legs...

Maybe that will calm him down a bit.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I agree that all your options are workable solutions.
I wish I had to figure out what to do with 4 cockerels.
I have about 30 cockerels between 12 and 15 weeks just starting to crow. I'll have lots of decisions to make soon. The best 5 will be flock guardians/breeders, perhaps 4 more will be held in reserve. The rest will make their way into all sorts of recipes.

ETA
It is a lot easier for me because they are all the same breed and variety. So I only have one standard to work from. I just need the space for them.

 

[NHMountainMan]

That's exactly how I keep my maximum number of pure bred flocks with minimal pens... add the rooster of choice from the stag pen to the hens before dawn and return to stag pen before dawn the next day... keeps pecking order in tact. And only collect egg for hatching from the color layer hen I want pure breeds from while others are collected for eating.

My stags don't fight in the stag pen because they see the ladies. They only fight through the fence if a stag is on the same side as the ladies. In fact I have a stag pen now completely away from the ladies and they fight just as much out of sight as in sight. It's not usually severe.

It does sound like you might be a little over excited and have an excess amount of projects planned...
leading to eventual exhaustion and narrowing down of what breeds YOU truly love keeping. They are often not as good in person as they are on paper.

Thanks - great info.

Patience may be a virtue. But I don't do either patience or finesse. Not good at it!
Truthfully - my perspective on timelines changed when I was diagnosed with cancer a few years back (in remission) I more or less went from thinking I was indestructible, to starting to think in terms of a bucket list. When I like something, I go for it now. In many ways, it was a blessing to have an altered point of view.
I did not expect to enjoy chickens nearly as much as I do. I was simply planning to eat healthier food - again, post cancer dx... But I'm hooked...

 

[NHMountainMan]

I don't know if you've seen this or how much of this you know already. It might help explain some of what yo are seeing.

Typical mating behavior between mature consenting adults.

The rooster dances for a specific hen. He lowers one wing and sort of circles her. This signals his intent.

The hen squats. This gets her body onto the ground so the rooster’s weight goes into the ground through her entire body and not just her legs. That way she can support a much heavier rooster without hurting her joints.

The rooster hops on and grabs the back of her head. The head grab helps him get in the right position to hit the target and helps him to keep his balance, but its major purpose is to tell the hen to raise her tail out of the way to expose the target. A mating will not be successful if she does not raise her tail and expose the target. The head grab is necessary.

The rooster touches vents and hops off. This may be over in the blink of an eye or it may take a few seconds. But when this is over the rooster’s part is done.

The hen then stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm into a special container inside the hen near where the egg starts its internal journey through her internal egg making factory.

You do not have mature consenting adults, you have unruly immature adolescents. At that age mating behavior is not about sex, it is about dominance. The one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either by choice or by force. In your case it is by force because that pullet is not consenting. If they are only going after her it is possible she is the dominant pullet, not the weakest and is their biggest threat. Or she may be the weakest, I don't know. Still they are after her.

Typically my pullets start to act like adults about the time they start to lay. It is not purely tied to age. There is no set age for boys to grow out of this hormone-driven stage either. I've had a very few manage that at 5 months, I've had some not manage until about a full year old. Typical is closer to seven months but not all are typical.

Once the males and females both reach their levels of maturity they generally know how to behave, but you probably know some 50 year old men and women that never left adolescence. Same thing can happen to some chickens. But once they mature they usually become a pretty laid back flock. Usually.

Sometimes having competition can stir a cockerel into more aggressive behavior. Eating one might be a reasonable strategy. It might not help but he'd be delicious. Which one? Get personal and feel them up, see which has the best meat. That's your breeder. Sometimes the feathers mask which one has the best meat, that's why feeling is best. But removing one might not help at all.

What do I do when I'm in something close to your situation. My conditions are a little different, I generally have one mature rooster, 6 to 8 mature hens, and maybe 15 to 20 pullets and 15 to 20 cockerels, not all the same age. I generally just let it go. No one is really getting injured. Usually my pullets hang with the boys, just run away when the boys get amorous. Often the boys will chase them down, grab their head to control them, and mate with them. Sometimes the girls get away but not that often. Occasionally some pullets hang in the coop, often on the roosts, to stay away from the boys. I have food and water inside and out so they don't starve or get thirsty. Your weather is a bit cold right now though so water may be a challenge.

I hardly ever see any gang rape or anything like that. It's rowdy, it's rough, but no one is getting hurt. About once every three or four years though it gets too rowdy even for me. So I lock a dozen or so of the older boys in their own separate grow-out coop away from the flock until butcher age.

This behavior generally starts with mine when the boys are about 15 to 16 weeks old, yours are late starters. At about 16 weeks I start butchering the ones I know I don't want to become my flock master. Breed the ones you want to eat and eat the ones you don't want to eat. Usually it is pretty to select the first and by 23 weeks I'm usually down to two or three left. That's when I usually make my final decision. I may not always guess right regarding behaviors, but it's usually not a horrible choice. But you only have two to choose from. That may be easy, it may not.

I see your options as letting it go and see what happens, but observe to see if any are getting hurt. Eat one now and see if that changed anything, or lock one or both boys separately for a month or two or maybe until a few pullets are laying and then try again. I would not fault you for any of them. I would not eat both because they are acting like typical teenagers and you do want to eventually breed them.

I had not seen this before - really enlightening. I think I'm going to give it a few days to see how things go. Even though it's cold, I have food and heated water in the coop, and I swap fresh water into the run areas every few hours (it's freezing fast right now!) - So, I am out there regularly. I have a lot of flexibility in how I can split things up. I've set up the area after reading a lot of @Shadrach articles and posts.

My land is set up like a wagon wheel. The home site is atop a mountain ridge, with a ton of wind. The two coops I'm using are set near the home site - about 400 feet away. We have 5 "spokes" leading to small fields, all downhill from the home site. I can see any of them from the top site, but they areas cannot see each other, as they are carved out of the forest. 3 are open fields, one is a small orchard and the last is a large raised be garden. I'm planning on the cornishX in the garden so they may eat some ticks, but even with forcing them to move to eat and drink they won't be able to climb into the garden beds. They'll be in a chicken tractor The rangers and possibly the bresse will be in the orchard (hoping they fertilize and eat some of bugs that eat the apples. (I won't spray). In another field I'm going to set a more permanent coop for eggs, and one game cock rooster, and the other will join the coop near the house.

Don't know if any of that make sense - but I guess what I'm saying is that I have built flexibility into my plans. I can pretty easily move the stag pen out of sight of the existing flock if I need to.

Again - thanks for the advice, as always.

 

[NHMountainMan]

There is nothing wrong with any of your options.
But, if you enjoy keeping chickens and you intend to do it for the forseeable future there is something that you should take into account that often gets drowned out in the noise of most of the rooster threads.
The first cockerels/roosters is the most difficult stage. Many never get past this stage. They kill or re-home their cockerels and roosters and get some more in the hope they get a 'nice' one.
I've never met a 'nice cockerel. Ime they all act up at some point, granted some more than others but if your cockerel doesn't misbehave at some point between 3 months and around 14 months there is something wrong with him. It's what they do.
If you pick one you like for whatever reason and stick with him then when he grows up and assuming you let him breed with his hens, if you let a hen or two sit and hatch the next males will learn from the original and senior rooster. Now you're in business and you're in a position to proactive rather than reactive with the progeny of the senior rooster.
The next generation of males will still misbehave but you won't have to deal with it in most cases; the senior rooster takes care of it. If you've learn't and adapted to the senior rooster and the relationship is good not only won't you have to deal with the new males behaviour towards the hens, you probably won't have to deal with the new males showing any aggression towards you either.
It's putting in the work with the first one that reaps benefits.
Many just don't get past the reactive stage unfortunately.

thanks for jumping in to the conversation - a lot of what I'm designing is based on your articles, and our conversations. I know there's no one way to do this - but the set up / tribes you describe is something I aspire to achieve.