when can I add my rooster to the flock?

[jackieo61028]

I have a 5 month old rooster that I want to add to a coop that has 23 2 month old pullets and 2 2month old Roos. When is it ok to put him in with the others in the coop? He free ranges mostly but he stands by the coop looking so sad. He paces around and around it every day. He also does a little dance. It's pretty manly. Any help would be appreciated. We've been doing this for approximately 2 months and are just learning as we go.

 

[jackieo61028]

He tries to roost here every night.

 

[Mrs. K]

Adding a single mature rooster to a flock is one of the easiest additions. The only tricky part might be those two immature roosters. Probably the sooner you add him is better than later. The closer the two accepted members roosters get to maturity the more the chance increases for rooster fighting.

You may be able to run the 3 roosters in a flock of that size with them all getting along, and then again you may not. Some roosters do fine together, a great many do not, and there is little way to tell except to try it.

A 5 month old rooster is more mature than a 2 month old rooster, but neither are very mature when it comes to the hens. If I read you correctly, you only have immature pullets. All three roosters will be wanting to mate, long before the pullets are ready. Which is going to lead to a very stressed flock.

You are goiing to possibly have 3 rooster fighting to be dominant, and 3 roosters trying to bang anything that walks.

Depending on what your set up is, if you do not have some older hens, I think I would pull all three of the roosters and put them in a bachelor pad until your hens are much closer to 5-6 months.

You might put them all together and everything works fine, I don't thinks so, but sometimes that happens. AArt has often give this good advice about multiple roosters. Have it already set up so that you can immediately separate them. Because when it goes to hell, it does so fast, and you need to separate them fast.

Mrs K

 

[Mrs. K]

ps: You have a beautiful set up, but I would recommend (and perhaps you have them, I just can't see them in the picture angle) adding some roosts in the run, a pallet up on blocks with a pallet leaned against it on the west side to provide some shade. And a pallet leaned up against the wall to provide some multiple levels, some verticle exercise, and the ability for birds to get away from each other and temporarily out of site of each other.

MK

 

[junebuggena]

At 5 months old, his hormones are starting to kick in. Without any mature hens around to breed, he will try to breed the younger immature pullets. This could cause serious harm to your little girls. Roosters are not gentle. They grab the back of a hens neck and dig in their spurs to hold on. The girls do scream and squawk at first. And teenage boys give them very little warning before hand. It's all a bit rough until everyone figures out what to do and how to do it. I would wait to add him until some of the pullets start to turn red in their combs. At that point, you'll know they are ready for him.

 

[jackieo61028]

Thank you so much for your input! It helps a lot. We ordered all pullets and, so far, only 2 have turned out to be Roos. I'm hoping we don't have any more. I guess if they end up not getting along we'll have to figure out something else. We might try the bachelor pad for a few months and see how they do. You'd think with 23 women they could share a little. Men....

We don't have any roosts up yet in the run. We plan on it soon. We plan on adding a lot of things and my list keeps getting longer rather than shorter! Lol We just recently finished building it. We do have a couple swings up that they LOVE! Also, the entire building is off the ground to provide shade and in the afternoon the shade from the building covers almost the whole run. We planned that because the area doesn't have any trees. I planted some greenery around it also to enventually give them even more shade.