What to do in my case, 3 Boys and 4 girls

[Gferna19]

Hello,

When we decided to get chickens we got 2 peeps (less than a week old) and 7 eggs. From the 2 we had a female and male. From the eggs we hatch 5. 3 girls and 2 boys. Now, my question is how do I do for the boys to not fight with each other. They are 11 and 15 weeks old now and I do not see a lot of fighting but every now and them the older rooster gets a little rough. I'm having a walk in coop build 8 x 10 and a bigger run probably 12 x 12 or bigger idk yet for them to have more space. Someone else suggested buy more girls, if that is the case How many more? and how will they react if i get new ones? They have been with only each other all this time. They also said get a "guardian" like add ducks or turkeys they even say get a goat. Will that change their behavior if I add someone else into their coop? I don't want them to be stress or something. I have also got them a little play area as well, to entertain them, it has a little swing and sand box but again will that be enough for me to stop them from killing each other because based on what I have read, it can come to that.
They are our babies and no, we are not considering killing one. What can you suggest? Thank you

 

[featheredplanets]

imo, with three boys, you’d need at least 12 hens per rooster, ans that’s the minimum.
Your coop can only fit 20 birds max, - 3 cockerels; that leaves room for only 17 hens, not enough for 2 boys, let alone 3.
There are several things you can do: rehome, cull or make them a “bachelor pad”. A “bachelor pad” is a set up just for cockerels and roosters. Probably the best root to go down if rehoming and culling aren’t an option.

Having too many roosters can result in fighting, indefinite stress and overbreeding.

I’m not sure on “guardians”, sorry.

 

[KikiLeigh02]

If you really want to keep them all, make them a bachelor pad. We've been thinking about using a chicken tractor as a grow out pen so we can let them get older and decide who we want to keep. If not, I would suggest re-homing at least 2 possibly all.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Adding more females will not stop fighting or mating problems. All adding more females will do is crowd them more so behavioral problems with males and females is more likely. I have zero faith in guardians helping any either.

Since you don't want to kill any I see a couple of possible solutions. As Kiki said, build a bachelor pad. Keep the boys in their own coop/run with no girls to fight over. That can be very successful.

Or get rid of them. When you give them away or sell them, you no longer have control over them. They may wind up living the good life somewhere. They may be eaten, either by people or as food for other animals. They may be used in some part of cockfighting. That's out of your control.

 

[bobbi-j]

Adding more girls is not always the answer. People have limited space and can't always add on. It won't be long before those cockerels reach sexual maturity (pullets mature later) and will be harassing those girls without mercy. At least that's been my experience when I've had that close of a ratio. The cockerels chased and gang-mated my pullets to the extent that the girls weren't able to eat, drink, dust bathe or rest without 2 or more cockerels chasing and mating them. It only lasted a few days until I put the boys in a grow out pen. (Some people call it a bachelor pen, but we planned to eat ours, so we grew them out.)

You will need to have a plan and be able to put it into action when things get ugly. (And they most likely will - especially if they're all penned up.) If processing them isn't an option, then you have two choices - either build them a bachelor pen or rehome all but one and don't ask any questions. If you keep them all together, there will be fights among the cockerels and the hens will be stressed, over bred and possibly injured. In the future, you may want to consider either getting sex-linked chicks to ensure you get pullets from now on, or older chickens so you can tell the gender.

 

[Chickassan]

I would start looking for new homes now given your situation. I know all about the baby boys trust me I do, in fact i'm trying to rehome two of mine right now. I'm going to be perfectly honest ok? The older they get the less you will want to keep them all. Those sweet baby birds will become a trouble making endless supply of suprise mating for everything within their viewpoint. Some will probably bite, they may or may not grow out of that. I know it is hard, but entertain the thought "what you see now is not what you're actually getting." This is from a lady who loves her roosters! I just had to seperate the fact of what I thought they were verses what the dudes actually are. Good luck, you've got a lot of boys to sort out.

 

[anna-newhampshire]

They are our babies

Please sift carefully through the suggestions you've been given. In the case of rehoming, if you care about them, you need to interview the person who offers to take them off your hands asking A LOT of questions. See if they agree to let you see their setup, etc. Because you could be sending them to a painful, ugly death. In rare cases , people do rescue though, but be very careful

A bachelor pad is of course ideal but if that doesn't work, and you didn't find someone trustworthy to rehome, maybe a male family member/friend (because they have stronger hands) could learn to do cervical dislocation. I understand there is no blood involved and it's instantaneous if done right. ( But I'm not 100% sure so you would have to research it yourself).

 

[Chickassan]

Op, let me share with you. Iv'e got two young fellas, faverolles nice docile breed. I hatched them myself, they're my babies. Today one had a comfy time out day in the run he had food, water, treats nothing bad he wasn't suffering. I opened the run to let him socialise for the last few hours of the day, he made a beeline for me and went up my leg. Now he's in a crate in the coop and he's sealed his fate. They really can and do flip like a switch sometimes.