What's w/the Roos?

[ElioraImmanuel]

Our flock began in May 2010. A few weeks ago I was given 3 Barred Rocks. They are so aggressive w/the girls. They are continually mounting them and then the loud, shrieking protests of the girls can be heard. Then, the feathers fly! My girls are going to be plucked clean! Oye!

What do I do? Will the aggression calm down? Will the girls become accustomed? What should I expect? TIA!

 

[bburn]

I am new to this also and trying to deal with the number of roo's in my flock. Too many roo's and not enough girls here. Maybe that is it. Or do you have your roo's separated in groups with girls for each?

I am trying to get down to just one roo for my 10 hens....mine are the same age as yours.

 

[lleighmay]

Hi- how many hens do you have? The general rule of thumb is 1 roo/8-10 hens- that way the girls get some relief. How old are your hens? Roos? Teenage roosters are like teenage boys- takes a while for them to settle down.

 

[tuesdays chicks]

How many hen do you have? Are the new rock all rooster? You may have too many roos.

 

[roosters4sale]

Hi. I'm not sure of your hen to rooster ratio, but, I use one rooster to ten hens ( 12 if he is veral). There will be lots of extra competion if there is less,but, thats ok if your roosters are away from the others. All of our roosters have a favorite,and, I can always tell because she always has some feathers gone where he holds on.

 

[gritsar]

Assuming you don't have too many roos per hen and also assuming that there's no blood flying, best to walk away and let it happen. Although the fuss from the pullets sounds horrible, it bothers us alot more than it bothers them; really.
Once the pullets are close to laying and start to squat for the boys, things will go alot smoother.

 

[Lollipop]

Actually that "rule of thumb" is for egg fertility. The most common causes of the problem you talk about is immature roosters, or as the others have mentioned, too many roosters. If your birds are under a year old, the problem is multiplied by what I lie to refer to as "teenage boy syndrom". Merely means their hormones are out of control and they will settle down as they mature. If you want to keep all of them, best thing to do is pen the roosters seperately, leaving only one with the girls........Pop

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with Pop and Gritsar. There is no ideal, perfect, magic ratio for number of hens to roosters. There are so many factors involved that the answer will be different for each of us. If you can slog your way through these threads you'll get a lot of information about what you might expect. They are living animals and you cannot be assured of what will happen in any specific flock.

The rule of thumb lleighmay mentioned really concerns fertility of the hens only and is for full sized fowl. For bantams the ratio is around 12 to 15 hens to each rooster to assure fertility. If you read the first link, you can see that many people have much smaller rations without having problems. I've seen posts on this site that a flock had problems with one rooster and 18 hens. The number of hens and roosters in the flock is a factor, but in my opinion, it is a minor factor. In my opinion, age of the roosters and the hens, how much room you have, the personalities of the individuals involved, and size difference between hens and the roosters are much more important. But the ratio is a factor, not just for how often they mate the hens but other things too. That's why I usually advise to keep as few roosters as you can and still meet your goals.

Breeders managing roosters
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=250327

Number of roosters thread
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=219443

Managing multiple roosters
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=229968

Very briefly, you can expect things might settle down as the roosters mature and get their hormones under better control and the pullets mature and start cooperating with the boys instead of resisting so strongly. But you might have a rooster that refuses to grow up and treat the girls with the respect they deserve. Or you might have a hen that will never accept the dominance of a rooster. Either one of these can really upset the happiness of your flock. I've gotten rid of hens and roosters for this reason.

 

[Jasmine1998]

Chicken mating is not pretty. I personally do not let my rooster mate in my presence...whatever he wants to do in the privacy of his coop is fine with me but when I am outside within eye or earshot he does not even think about it. It did not take much training. I only had to grab him once by his back feathers when he mounted a hen & that was it. The only time I need to give him a nasty look is when I first let them out of the coop to free range...sometimes then he will get a little excited & think about trying....but all it takes is a mean look from me & me saying his name.

 

[sheila3935]

so far my barred rock roos, 2 of them age 14 weeks are very good. They dont bother the girls yet especially the reds they run from them. No major scuffles between them. and the small one has pecked me once and he got a quick smack and picked up carried around for a bit, although I secretly think he likes to be carried around

he did crow for the first time yesterday. Lindy the bigger not older one has crowed since he was 5 weeks old, but Penguin never did. Went out yesterday to let them out he climbed up on top of the baby coop and let one out. Lindy looked at him like please let me show you hows its done and crowed too. Lindys crow is getting pretty good Pengs is like a car starting Just too cute