Sorry about the rant but i'm abit confused as i'm still fairly new to chickens. Basically i recently purchased my first lot of chickens at a rare breeds auction. 3 Maran girls, and a trio of Rhode Island reds with a cockerel. The following day because i only live 5 mins away from the auction we found a Lavender Aracuana cockerel at the side of the road dumped, we took him in but because of our unexperience we decided not to introduce the 2 cocks for a while. We decided Claud couldn't live on his own and got him an amber star girlfriend followed by 2 light sussex a few weeks later. It was like love at first sight with the Amber lol. Anyhow we've now let all hens out together and although Rodney made sure Claud knew who was boss there doesn't seem to be too much of a problem apart from Claud still wont sleep in the hen house with the others. Lily(Amber) has now started to sleep with the others and no longer is interested in Claud. I dont think hes very happy about it and actually looks very upset although he still has the light sussex i'm worried they'll leave him to. Should i force them all to sleep together? its just Claud is terrified of Rodney as he picks on him, mainly in the morning. Do you think maybe lily sees it as safety in numbers thats why shes swapped coops? she doesn't even get on with them hens like she did with the original group. Although she does now seem to be Rodneys favourate but i get the feeling its only because he knows Claud really likes her lol. Poor Claud i really feel sorry for him he also gets picked on by the Rhodie girls although he does seem above his girlfriends and the Marans so hes not quite bottom of the pecking order. Bless him.
I'm not a big authority on rooster/hen relationships, but I think what you're seeing with your tiny flock is very simple - the top roo has laid claim to all the hens. And the hens are relating to him as the alpha in return. If you want Claud to have more action, you may need to double the number of available hens.
