What's the best thing to do?

[sukr4chkns]

Good afternoon fellow chicken lovers,

Today marks a the beginning of a new chapter for my family and I as we take the next step in raising chickens. We are now ready to butcher our first bird. We have 14 chickens, 3 of which are roosters and it's time for one or two to go.
The rooster who seems to have the most dominance in the flock is a beautiful, but noisy bird. Then there is a rooster who is trying to take over as top dog, but fails miserably. The youngest Rooster is beautiful, my daughters favorite bird, and the most nosiest (often crowing at 10PM, 1 AM and 5 AM).

We are planning on butchering at least one to put in the freezer for another day.

I'm wondering if we can keep two roosters with the 11 hens. We are actually planning on getting 3-4 more laying hens, so would two roosters be alright or should I just butcher 2 and keep one.


Such a hard decision. Never did look forward to this point in the process.


Thanks all for any advice you may have.


sukr4

 

[bobbi-j]

I would butcher two and keep one. A single rooster should easily be able to cover 11-14 hens. As to which rooster to keep? Only you can know which would be best for your family. I would keep the least human-aggressive one. If you have close neighbors, I don't think I'd keep the one who crows at 10pm, 1&5 am. If you don't have close neighbors, then it really doesn't matter if you don't mind the noise.

 

[Joe Jordan]

Depends on the breed. I have two Salmon Faverolle roosters who get along great and have figured out the pecking order quite well. The girls only let the dominant one try to breed them. It can work with two, but only under the right conditions.

 

[AVintageLife]

We ended up with five roosters and five pullets from the chicks we raised this summer. This weekend we culled three of the roosters (one is in the soup pot as we speak). We culled two that were on the mean side and one who was so meek he didn't have a very good quality of life (afraid of everything, the others wouldn't let him eat). The three were delivered to the processor on Friday afternoon. My DH and I spent the day today finishing up the run and cleaning up the coop for the winter and we both noticed a tremendous difference in the flock. We kept Shawn-T, an EE roo who is so good at his job and friendly to people. We also kept "E" (previously Elaine when we thought he was a pullet), a beautiful Barred Rock who does actually behave more like a hen than a rooster. "E" doesn't crow, I haven't seen him try to mate and I think he respects Shawn-T enough that I don't think there will be any battles. They spent the weekend running around the yard and having fun and I really sense that they are happier. We're hoping the seven will be fine over the winter and will add a few more pullets in the spring.