Why butcher roosters?

[austindon]

We have one sussex rooster and he has been great taking care of his 5 ladies. We have chicks now and it looks like we just hatched a male. Will we want to butcher him since it is better to have only one rooster with our clan? If we don't butcher him will we have some rooster fighting and general unrest with now two roosters? And I am sure we can expect another male to match, so at what point do you have too many roosters? I have no issues with butchering and eating a rooster, so that is not a problem. I would rather do that since sell him.

Your thoughts?

At some point are there too many hens for just one rooster? Our one sussex rooster has been handling 5 ladies just fine.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

Two roosters for 5 hens is too many. Your girls will probably get most of their back feathers torn off if the boys are paying them too much attention, and they can also get really stressed out too if they are over bred.

If you hatch chicks, you will get roosters. I hatched out 30+ roosters last summer and butchered all except the the most exceptional ones.

 

[austindon]

Thanks. Which of your roosters did you consider exceptional? What made them exceptional? As our girls grow into ladies, how many ladies will be have when we want to add another rooster?

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

Oh and it just depends on the temper many of the individual roosters as to if they can be kept with other males. I have 8 roosters for 90+ hens. My roosters for the most part get along quite peaceably with only the occasional tussle. Some roosters just weren't socialized enough and will not tolerate anothwr male in the vicinity; that is how I got my EE Roo, my mothers rooster (his father) was trying to kill him once he reached juvenile age and they had a hard time keeping them seperated. There are crowing contests too with multiple roosters, so keep that in mind.

On the positive side, more roosters mean more diversified genetics in your flock and more lookouts for predators. But you need the space for multiple roosters and a plan if keeping more than one doesn't work out.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

I look for good temperament, inteligence, and body type/size/ color as per the SOP. The temperament is the most important, you REALLY don't want to deal with nasty roos on a daily basis.

Mixes are really fun because there are no guidelines to follow with them and I love the varieties of colors that pop up. The hens are great layers but the roos usually go in the freezer. I only have so much space.

 

[austindon]

Yes to the mixes and variety. It makes it fun to see what will pop out of an egg. I don't think space will be a problem. I am finishing the touches on a major coop expansion. The huge tree fort that I built for the kids many years ago is in great shape and will be an expansion of the small coop we started with last August. It has two stories, lots of room, and there will be a large fenced in area for free ranging. We will always have lots of room for these new additions to the family.