Trouble with rooster and egg-laying hens

[thepollopad]

We recently found and adopted a lost rooster and are working on building a nice big coop. However, we never planned on having a rooster--we planned to have chickens and enjoy their eggs. What is the best setup for having a rooster and egg-laying hens?

A few ideas we had (and could be totally wrong about!)

1) Split coop in half; give rooster some girlfriends on one side and have single lady hens on other side
2) Allow rooster to be free range, but we're worried about coyotes. Should we build him a roost as sanctuary?

Any help would be appreciated! We're starting from scratch over here.

 

[Pyxis]

There's no reason you can't keep him right in with your hens. You can't tell the difference between a fertile egg and an infertile egg besides that the little white spot on a fertile egg's yolk will have a bullseye like appearance, and in an infertile egg it's just a dot. As long as you have enough hens to prevent overmating, there shouldn't be a problem keeping him right in with them.