When your hen is a rooster?!? (so many questions)

[RedMoxie]

I've never tried a no-crow collar so don't know how that will work.

Others will disagree, but in my experience a rooster does little good against most predators. The biggest benefit is that he might be an early warning system against a few predators. But a lot of the predators are ambush type so he does not see them coming or they attack at night when he is on the roost and pretty helpless. When mine identify a threat they tend to lead the flock to safety instead of defend it. In the various predator attacks I've had (dogs, fox, hawk, and owl), my rooster has always escaped unscathed. There are times a rooster does help, but from what I've seen that help is often more romanticized than reality.

It is possible a rooster will become human aggressive or will be rough on the hens, but again I find that the risk of that is often overstated, especially once they get through puberty. Things can be really unsettling watching a cockerel go through puberty. As someone on here said, watching them go through puberty is not for the faint of heart. Those things can happen and occasionally do happen, but most of the time they don't when you are dealing with adults.

I don't know what your goals are but I generally recommend to only keep as many roosters as you need to meet your goals. The only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs, anything else is just personal preference. Many people that do not want fertile eggs would still not dream of having a flock without a rooster, others are extremely happy to not have a rooster anywhere near their flock. At the end of the day it is not going to affect how many eggs your hens lay. Others had covered the eating fertile eggs question.

I don't know if the correct answer for you is 0 or 1 rooster. That has to be your call. But kind of reading between the lines I suspect it might be 0.

This is very helpful. I appreciate all the info here. I suppose my biggest *pro* in favor of keeping the rooster is that we've grown modestly fond of him and hate to send him off to almost surely become dinner. But we're realists, too, and I imagine it is only a matter of time before our neighbors help us make the decision (the crow collar was ordered today--so its possible that by tomorrow we get reported and dont even have a chance to test the theory).

There isnt any actual livestock reason for us to keep him. We dont intend on hatching chicks and, to your point, if there isnt a true safety value in having a roo, then we might just need to find him a home sooner than later.