What is the minimum amount of hens per roosters so that the roosters won't fight each other?

[Folly's place]

Keep your small coop, or add on to it but make it possible to close off the spaces when necessary.
My coop is about 14'x24', roughly, and has grown in sections, so I have five spaces that can be closed off individually, for broody hens, separate breeding groups, chicks, or whatever. It works very well.
Mary

 

[Sire12]

Keep your small coop, or add on to it but make it possible to close off the spaces when necessary.
My coop is about 14'x24', roughly, and has grown in sections, so I have five spaces that can be closed off individually, for broody hens, separate breeding groups, chicks, or whatever. It works very well.
Mary

It's plastic so I would be able to add on to it, I'll take a pic of the inside of it tomorrow when it's daylight to show the size, they only go there at night to sleep and I lock them in they have have different areas to lay and eat / drink throughout the rest of the yard

 

[Angileen]

My roosters are Black Jersey Giants. They are like the Great Dane of the chicken world. Very calm and mellow, they pretty much look very scary but are big teddy bears.

View attachment 1927232

One of my Cockerels is also a Black Jersey Giant, they are handsome birds. I can't wait until mine is fully mature to see how big he will get. Right now he is one of the smaller cockerels that I have. They are all the same age and have been raised together. My Midnight majesty Marans and Lavender Orpington are the biggest so far they are close to the same size, my Buckeye and Jersey Giant are a little smaller but they are also equal in size to each other so far. I have heard that it can take a while for Jersey Giants to reach their full potential. How long have you been raising JG? Your cockerel is handsome, how old is he in this photo.

 

[FortCluck]

One of my Cockerels is also a Black Jersey Giant, they are handsome birds. I can't wait until mine is fully mature to see how big he will get. Right now he is one of the smaller cockerels that I have. They are all the same age and have been raised together. My Midnight majesty Marans and Lavender Orpington are the biggest so far they are close to the same size, my Buckeye and Jersey Giant are a little smaller but they are also equal in size to each other so far. I have heard that it can take a while for Jersey Giants to reach their full potential. How long have you been raising JG? Your cockerel is handsome, how old is he in this photo.

He's only 5 months and past my knees in height. His brother and him are my first ever JG. They were supposed to be pullets from the hatchery (our farm orders from Meyers I think) I think we got someone else's order. Squatch grew really fast, if they grow more I'll have a HUGE rooster.

 

[FortCluck]

One of my Cockerels is also a Black Jersey Giant, they are handsome birds. I can't wait until mine is fully mature to see how big he will get. Right now he is one of the smaller cockerels that I have. They are all the same age and have been raised together. My Midnight majesty Marans and Lavender Orpington are the biggest so far they are close to the same size, my Buckeye and Jersey Giant are a little smaller but they are also equal in size to each other so far. I have heard that it can take a while for Jersey Giants to reach their full potential. How long have you been raising JG? Your cockerel is handsome, how old is he in this photo.

Here he is next to my Red sex link... She is 10 months old

I felt like they weren't growing until 3 months then they grew double the size overnight.

 

[Kat gall]

It really depends on the roosters.
I have one rooster and one cockerel.
I have 10 hens and 14 "of age" pullets.
The rooster still runs off that cockerel every chance he gets if he sees him mating any of the girls.

I go 4 baby chick's from my grand kids school? I think I have 3 roos and 1 hen. They are about 18 weeks old now.

 

[Mrs. K]

It is a crap shoot - multiple roosters might work, and they might not, they might work for a while, and then not work at all.

Things to consider:

• space and hideouts, with escapes are more important than a special number. The ability to get out of sight can really help. Wide open spaces do not provide that.
• being raised together has almost no influence in adult behavior, cockerels and roosters getting along this week, is NOT an indication they will get along in a month or 3 months or really even tomorrow.
• Some thing father/sons have a tendency to work better, brothers often get along well - until they don't, the following spring can really blow up. Strange roosters are a recipe for a cock fight at the least.
• Free ranging will not make up for a too small of coop. At least if you are in the part of the world where the daylight decreases dramatically making the nights 16 hours long. Or there are blizzard which confine birds to areas of protection.

Some people get lucky, some people have a disaster, I really don't think it is something the people did, but rather the luck of the throw in a crap shoot.

Mrs K

 

[Kat gall]

I've read that as a rule of thumb 1 rooster per 10 hens seems to be the sweet spot, I currently have 1 rooster and 5 hens and they're happy enough they have huge big yard to free range in all day and I'm planning on hatching out some eggs in an incubator and keeping 1 of the hatched roos, they're all brahma breeds so they're mostly docile anyway but how many hens per roo would keep them all fairly content and happy?

So, if I only have 1hen and 3 roos, should I get rid of 2 roos.?

 

[Mrs. K]

So, if I only have 1hen and 3 roos, should I get rid of 2 roos.?

Yes!

No! Get rid of three if you only have one hen!

 

[NatJ]

So, if I only have 1hen and 3 roos, should I get rid of 2 roos.?

I don't see any really good solutions.

First step is to make sure you are allowed to have chickens, and see if you are allowed hens only or also roosters. (If you are in the USA, check zoning for your county or city, and check for HOA rules. If you are not in the USA, I don't know what you need to check.)

If you are not allowed to have any chickens, obviously you should get rid of them all.

If you are allowed to have hens but no roosters, you should get rid of all the roosters. But it is not good to keep one chicken by itself, so if you keep the one hen, you should get some other hens to keep her company. Or else get rid of her too, so she can go live with other hens somewhere else.

It usually does not work well to keep just one hen with a rooster. He usually wants to mate so much that he wears out the feathers on her back and generally makes her miserable. (Some roosters can be kept with just one hen, so it depends on your individual rooster, but you won't know about your rooster unless you try-- and if it doesn't work well, then you have a problem.)

So if you are allowed to have roosters as well as hens, you could get rid of two roosters, keep one rooster and the hen, and get more hens to add to that number.

Or if you are fond of the particular roosters you have, you could keep all three of them and get rid of the hen. You will get lots of crowing and no eggs, but roosters will often do well together if there are no hens to fight over.

Each of these ideas has some downsides and some advantages, so I don't know which would be best for your situation, but hopefully one or another will work.