Too Many Roosters?

[DelawareSilkie]

I was wondering if the amount of roosters would affect a flock of hens' egg production. Case in point, I have four roosters (Brahma, Silkie, Cross Rock/Faverolle, Wydotte Mix) that sometimes fight a lot and treat the girls roughly. Compared to my four roosters, there are seven hens though, many mixed breeds. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Teach97]

Sress...increase stress decrease eggs....yes too many roosters can have an affect

 

[mulewagon]

Yep, it sure will. My hens stopped laying as the extra roosters started to mature, then as soon as they were gone, resumed laying. I still have four roosters with eleven hens, and we're looking to get rid of two of them. They aren't bad, but it's just too many, and they're defeathering the hens.

 

[donrae]

I'm thinking that's way too many roos, and your girls may be telling you the only way they can. Seperate all but one of the roos and see how it goes.

 

[Yazzo]

It depends on what the roosters are like. I have 5 roosters with my hens right now: 3 are super gentle and hardly ever go after the hens. One is small and an excellent flock master. And the other is feisty but really good with the hens. If there is a rooster that's too aggressive with the hens, I separate him into a 'bachelor pad' in the orchard. It varies from rooster to rooster and flock to flock, but if you have 4 roosters that are too aggressive with the hens, I would recommend either selling or separating them. If you had a lot more hens it might work out great, but with only 7, it's not really fair to the hens.

 

[CMV]

I have one rooster to 18 hens. Despite having a ton of ladies to choose from he insists on focusing his attentions on 3 girls in particular. These 3 all have bare backs (I can't keep saddles on them. They are constantly wiggling out of them.) and one stopped laying for a couple weeks due to the stress of his constant attention.

Too many roos leads to unhappy and beaten up hens. You need to get rid of some roos or set them up in a bachelor pad by themselves.

 

[DelawareSilkie]

Thank you for the replies. My dominant rooster silkie only mates with his gal, and the other two are pretty gentle and fairly kind hearted towards their gal pals. I did have to separate the one aggresive rooster. He just didn't know how to mate fast and gentle with my girls. But theyre looking better already.

 

[Jx2inNC]

I've got too many for sure, and it isn't causing too many problems.
I need to remove some, but until I have time to, they don't seem to be struggling.
I'm very likely just fortunate, but I'll take it.

 

[sourland]

Fighting, chasing and overbreeding cause the hens stress. This can radically affect egg production.

 

[dorothyp]

I had too many roosters. They were very competitive with each other and would chase the hens until all the roosters got the same hen. Once we got rid of more than half the roosters which were rough with the girls, egg production went up immediately.