Too many roosters

[Darlene415]

Hi all....not sure I'm posting in the correct forum but here goes. We incubated a dozen eggs in September, 5 of which hatched, 4 of which so far are roosters. Everyone is telling my husband we must get rid of them or atleast 2 of them, now these people don't even have chickens number 1 so what the heck do they know. I know 4 roosters for 1 hen is too many so we are on our way as we speak to purchase atleast 10 - 4 mth old pullets to join our flock. I love my roosters, only one is snotty so far and has been since the day it was born, i do not eat my chickens so crock pot is out of the question for my roosters, i am attached to them already and do bot want to get rid of any of my roosters. Yes they all have names, they are for pets and eggs only. So what im thinking is keeping all my roosters and adding 10-15hens to the flock and if the roosters get too aggressive i will release them from the 10x30 pen and let them free range and just keep 1 in with my hens...does this sound logical or is it too far fetched...i need opinions as we are new chicken folks! Thanks!

 

[DobieLover]

Do you plan to quarantine the new pullets? They should be kept separate from your current 5 for several weeks to ensure they are healthy before you start to slowly integrate them into your flock. You will want to be on the look out for coccidiosis outbreaks in both flocks.
In the mean time, you will need to separate all but one of your cockerels from your current pullet.
If you just try to boot these boys out of the pen, they will still see the pullet and will likely start fighting when the hormones start to kick into overdrive and that time is very soon.
11 pullets for 4 cockerels is still likely going to be too many males to females. I tried just 2 cockerels to 10 pullets and my girls were getting overbred with gobs of feathers being ripped out of their heads and necks and generally being roughed up. I sent the nicest boy off to a new home.
You may want to just keep one of your cockerels. The one that is showing the least signs of human/pullet aggression. However, once the rest of the boys have been removed, all bets are off on his continued good behavior.
Long and short, I'm afraid you will need to rehome most of these young boys or your pullets will suffer the consequences. And sooner or later, those boys may really injure each other.
Good luck.

 

[rjohns39]

There are a number of us who setup a bachelor pad for our extra cockerels. Sometimes, it's a coop and run, others a separate fenced area and for me it's a chicken tractor. I choose the ones I want for breeding and they get to hang out with the girls. Then I'll setup my breed pens for spring hatching. This is an unfortunate reality when we hatch our own as there always seems to be too many cockerels.

 

[sourland]

Here rooster flocks are suspicious to authorities. It is a sign that the game of kings is being played and bet on.

There are laws against keeping too many roosters. One person a county over had his heritage breeding flocks destroyed because of too many cock birds. Quite sad

And that is so absolutely unrealistic as anyone who has ever dealt with games knows that rooster flocks will absolutely not work with them. SMH at sheer stupidity.

 

[Keeperofmunchkins]

You could consider keeping just roosters and rehome the pullet. It is possible to have male only flocks if they don't fight, which is less likely when they were raised together and have no hens to fight over. They will make a lot of noise and of course won't give you eggs but they can be lovely to keep as pets if you are already attached to them.

Otherwise I think you may still have trouble with four cockerels. But it all depends on their personalities and the temperaments of the pullets you get. I would recommend getting older girls who are already laying and are older than the boys so they will not be bossed around too much. Younger pullets can be very nervous and get bullied by the roos. Also you will need a LOT of space for that many chickens with four roos in the mix to help prevent them aggressively overmating.

I once successfully kept three roosters together with only six hens for a several months (before I rehomed two) and there was zero problems. The two smaller ones were raised together by one of the oldest rooster's hens so were his sons. They did not fight and they established a hierarchy within the flock. The hens free range so are able to escape their advances and the boys by nature were just not that prone to excessive mating plus are very gentle Bantam breeds. So it is possible but it 100% depends on the individual birds' behaviour and their living arrangements (i.e having enough space to escape each other).

 

[sourland]

Sometimes rooster flocks in the absence of hens work. Multiple roosters in a free ranging flock with lots of territory sometimes works. Frequently in either of these situations something can trigger an all out rooster war. 4 roosters in a pen with any number of hens is most likely not going to work.

 

[ronott1]

It sounds like a bit too much time, expense and work to keep a flock that large for keeping hatched cockerels

Sell them or rehome them in a different way. Here we have rooster rescue places.

Additionally, if you are going to continue incubating, come up with a plan for the cockerels.

I have had hatches that were nearly all cockerels. If I wanted to keep a flock for each them, I could have hundreds of cockerels

 

[GaryDean26]

Hi all....not sure I'm posting in the correct forum but here goes. We incubated a dozen eggs in September, 5 of which hatched, 4 of which so far are roosters. Everyone is telling my husband we must get rid of them or atleast 2 of them, now these people don't even have chickens number 1 so what the heck do they know. I know 4 roosters for 1 hen is too many so we are on our way as we speak to purchase atleast 10 - 4 mth old pullets to join our flock. I love my roosters, only one is snotty so far and has been since the day it was born, i do not eat my chickens so crock pot is out of the question for my roosters, i am attached to them already and do bot want to get rid of any of my roosters. Yes they all have names, they are for pets and eggs only. So what im thinking is keeping all my roosters and adding 10-15hens to the flock and if the roosters get too aggressive i will release them from the 10x30 pen and let them free range and just keep 1 in with my hens...does this sound logical or is it too far fetched...i need opinions as we are new chicken folks! Thanks!

Well you probably could get a thousand opinions about this on this forum so what I have to say may not mean much but here I go.

I grew up in the city where no one had chickens (this was 30 years ago before the urban chicken movement). I did about one Science Project type hatch a year starting when I was about 8 years old. My parents would always have me take the chicks to my uncle's farm four hours away before they were even 4 weeks old. When I was about 14 years old I did a hatch that resulted in a single pullet and four cockerels. It was one of my most memorable hatches because we got really busy that year and never made any trips to my uncle's farm. The birds grew to 8 weeks old then 16 weeks old then 24 weeks old etc. The cockerels all seemed to get along together. The pullet seemed to get along well with the males too. So...I kept them all together and never had any problems.

Fast Forward 30 years and I have now raised thousands of chickens and have been breeding my own flocks for the past 8 years (which means I have grown out hundreds of cockerels). I have found that cockerel (and even cocks) can live together if they have a lot of space. If they are confined in a small run or coop the weaker cockerels will not be able to get off the turf of the stronger cockerels and stronger males will constantly punish the weaker cockerels for it. Once one cockerel is bloody or wounded everyone will pick on his. They like to hit the weak birds while they are down. Once they get to that point the only options is to remove the weaker bird from the group and put him in isolation so he has heal and recover. So...give the cockerels plenty of space. I would give them at least 100 square feet for each cockerel. Also put the food and water in multiple places. the dominate cockerel will claim the main food/water bucket as his turf and he will guard it. Any time a lower ranking cockerel gets hungry or thirsty enough to step on the turf he will get punished. If you have food and water in two locations then the food locations will not be a source of fighting in the flock because the dominate male can only guard one location so the others can still eat and drink at the other locations.

As for the pullet...if you are breeding a large flock you don't need a lot of males to produce fertile eggs. One year I got some hatching eggs from a neighbor's laying flock. He said he didn't now how may would be fertile because he had 30 hens and just one cockerel. Well...we had and 88% hatch. So no, for breeding purposes you don't need a lot of cockerels. Since you are not breeding your flock and are just keeping them for eggs and pets the recommended cockerel to hen ratios can change. Four cockerels and one pullet might work. The one caution is that you don't want the cockerels mating the pullet relentlessly. If they are being rough on her and pulling out her feathers, cutting up her comb, not letting her come out to eat or forage with out being chased and mounted over and over then that is a problem. Some cockerels will over mate the pullet. If that is a problem then getting more pullets may or may not help. The cockerels that over mate the hens tend to choose a favorite hens and mate her non-stop while only mating the others enough to ensure that he is fathering the offspring. The same is true with just one hen/pullet. Some will only mate than one hen/pullet enough to ensure that he is fathering offspring and other will mate her non-stop. I haven't experimented with space on the hen ratios, but I have run 2-3 males with small group of hens (8-12) and they have done fine. They are still at the 100+ square feet per chicken so that may be part of our success.

I have found that even with the best management you can have a problem causing male that won't get along in a group of cockerels while all the other males do and that even with the best management you can have a male that will abuse the hens while other males won't. It is an individual thing. Some breeds or lines of a breed will have more problem males and some will have fewer problem males but in the half dozen breed we have bred (with a half dozen line fore each) we have found that chickens are individual and their behavior is independent of their breed.

We have also found problem hens. You may have a flock of 4 cockerels and one pullet that never have any problems. Then you introduce 10-15 hens and all of a sudden your pullet that was fine with the males finds that the hens abuse her. This is almost certain to happen any time you put birds from two flocks together. The hens have a pecking order just like the males do and they will fight for a week or more when they are put together. The problem hens are those that will abuse other hens even when they are raised together and are from the same flock. That happens too. So... you can't avoid problem hens or problem males. They could could be in any group that you raise or bring in. You can do things quite different in a pet flock than you do in a breeding or production flock though. You just need to give the flock a lot of room so they can establish their natural hierarchy in the flock without being constrained bycoop space, feeding areas, etc. You also need to watch for the bad apples in the flock because they will spoil the whole barrel.

Oh...and you may hear this a thousand times on this forum too, but if you want to have a flock of pet chickens that you can enjoy (I do....and yes I have names for my chickens, and I can name all of them by sight and usually tell which one laid each egg in the nesting box too) you need to get rid of the problem birds. It wouldn't be prudent to keep a pet Dog that you know will attack any children it can get to or that you know will attack the mail man every day, or that you know will kill other neighbor's dogs, cats, etc. That would land you in court with serious charges against you. So...why would you keep a pet chicken that you know will attack or abuse other chickens (or small children, or the mail man, etc.)? No one should own chickens who is not willing and able to get rid of birds that are no well behaved in the flock and with people. It is not responsible and it will turn a wonderful pet flock into a nightmare. The crock pot will give the problem birds some meaning to its life. If you refuse to do than you need another plan. Letting it live in isolation might limit the risk, but the liability is still there and you can't shrug the responsibility. If you can't thin a flock of cockerels you may need to stick with the sexed pullets from the hatcheries. Being a owner of pet chickens comes with many responsibilities. Managing cockerels (and hens too) is one of them, but you probably have already heard that from a thousand other people and have a good method for managing your flock so I will leave it at that.

 

[cmom]

There are a number of us who setup a bachelor pad for our extra cockerels. Sometimes, it's a coop and run, others a separate fenced area and for me it's a chicken tractor. I choose the ones I want for breeding and they get to hang out with the girls. Then I'll setup my breed pens for spring hatching. This is an unfortunate reality when we hatch our own as there always seems to be too many cockerels.

I pretty much do the same thing. I hatch out 200/300 chicks yearly. I did have a place where I could sell my extra males but they closed last spring so now I take them to a couple of local swaps and sell them. Originally they are all in a brooder and after they have spent 2/3 weeks in the brooder, the chicks go out to the grow-out coops and pens. My situation is quite different than the backyard flocks. There are times of the year when I'll have 400/500 birds total. Different feed for the different age groups.
This is my brooder, one of the bachelor pens and a grow out coop video.

 

[aart]

they are for pets and eggs only.

Then sounds like you'll need to keep a 'bachelor coop'.

The only thing males are good for around here is 1 for fertilizing eggs to hatch more layers...and the rest go to the grill or soup pot.

If you're going to hatch, you need a plan for the ~50% males.