Too many roos!!!

[Seep77]

New chicken mom here. I have 7 chickens ranging 3-4 months old, and I'm pretty sure 4 out of the 7 are roos! They've all been raised together, and have established a pecking order amongst themselves. Is there any way they can continue to coexist or will things get ugly once sexual maturity hits?

 

[ILoveBabySilkies]

Things will definitely get ugly once sexual maturity hits. I suggest you choose the best roo and re home, eat etc the others. Even with 1 roo and 3 hens that’s quite an iffy ratio. This all depends on the roo and if he over mates the hens, if he does over mate them you will either need to add more hens, get hen saddles, or get rid of him or sperrate him completely. Best of luck!

 

[deidreg]

I think the "terrible teens" will come soon. I have a young cockerel who is basically a 14 year old boy.

 

[Mrs. K]

Set up immediately a way to separate birds from each other, you are going to need it.

Strongly consider removing all of the roosters. If you are new to this, a hen only flock is best to start with.

There really is not much chance of those birds remaining how they are at this time. This is what makes it so hard to believe that it will get ugly. When it does, it happens rather quickly.

 

[aart]

Set up immediately a way to separate birds from each other, you are going to need it.

Strongly consider removing all of the roosters. If you are new to this, a hen only flock is best to start with.

There really is not much chance of those birds remaining how they are at this time. This is what makes it so hard to believe that it will get ugly. When it does, it happens rather quickly.

Ditto Dat!

 

[Thechicksdigme]

We have a farm here that will take roosters for a small fee. Maybe try calling around and see if there is anything like that near you

 

[Ridgerunner]

Things will change when puberty hits. Kind of surprised you're not seeing something now at 3 to 4 months. As someone on here said watching juveniles go through puberty is not for the faint of heart.

What are your goals with those boys? Why do you want them? The only reason you need a rooster is for fertile eggs. Everything else is personal preference. Nothing wrong with preferences, I have a few myself, but those are choices, not needs. I generally suggest you keep as few males as you can and still meet your goals. That's not because you are guaranteed problems with more males, just that problems are more likely.

What are you options? Keep going as you are. Base your decisions on what you see. It's not always that horrible, especially if you have a lot of room. Different people have different tolerances for what they see. This is my basic approach, but I do have a place immediately available to separate them if I need to. Sometimes I need to.

You can get rid of all the boys or all but one. "Get rid of" could mean eat, sell, give away, or house separately. Even one boy may be too much for you once puberty hits.

You can set up a bachelor pad. If the boys are housed together with no girls to fight over it'w usually not very bad. They will develop a pecking order, but so will a flock of all girls. Just don't give them any girls to fight over. Ever.

You can get more girls but I personally do not recommend that approach unless you just want more girls. If the boys are going to fight over the girls, it doesn't matter if there are 20 girls or one, they are going to fight. Some people with one rooster for every 20 girls have the same kinds of over-mating or barebacked problems as a much smaller ratio. It's a good excuse to get more girls but I don't see it as solving a problem. You just have to add integration to your task list.

I don't know your goals or anything about your set-up, but my strong recommendation is to be ready to separate them immediately. The need can show up immediately and is usually when it is not convenient to stop everything else you are dealing with.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

New chicken mom here. I have 7 chickens ranging 3-4 months old, and I'm pretty sure 4 out of the 7 are roos! They've all been raised together, and have established a pecking order amongst themselves. Is there any way they can continue to coexist or will things get ugly once sexual maturity hits?

They most likely will not coexist unless you separate them from the hens https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/rooster-flocks.72998/.

 

[Sally PB]

I bought three pullets and three straight run chicks. The straight runs were all boys. By the time they were 3-1/2 months old, two of the boys were unholy terrors. They bit me. They harassed the girls until the girls just sat on the roost in the coop. I had to hand feed and water them; if they were on the floor or the ground, one of those cockerels was on them.

The situation went from everyone pretty much getting along to this situation in a matter of days. I tried to find homes for the two, but in the end I had to cull them. I couldn't even wait another four days to take them somewhere, they had to go NOW, it was that ugly.

If your chickens are all still getting along, figure out which, if any, of the cockerels you want to keep. Get rid of the rest. Rehome if you can, cull them if you can't. I couldn't find any takers. Not even "free chicken dinner, some disassembly required."

Culling them was very difficult. I cried. Hard. It wasn't their fault they were born male. But after the second one was gone, the girls came out of the coop. There was peace in my flock once again. Yes, I still have the third cockerel, and so far it is working out with just three pullets. From what I've read here, I am lucky in that regard.

 

[Stefrrr]

I had to move my three cockerels into a bachelor pad at about 4.5 months. They were maturing and chasing the pullets around the run, and the pullets were still two months from mature. I gave one cockerel away, processed the other, and now the last cockerel standing is back with the ladies after about two months away.

I let the bachelors free range in sight of the pullets daily so they all remembered each other, and Gunther reintegrated immediately.

There were seven cockerels to start, but I gave three away and processed one before it became an issue with those, as soon as I knew they were cockerels.

My advice is raise two or three to choose one from at maturity but start thinking of them all as food now.