Wonderings about choosing a rooster.

[Shadrach]

It's worthwhile bearing in mind that much of the advice you'll get is based around small flocks kept in a coop and run environment.
I have 6 roosters here atm and have had 9.
I have 16 hens and pullets.
All free range all day and in all weathers.

 

[Shadrach]

5 hens :/ they were 10.
no children.
and yes free range.

Okay, what is most likely to happen is you will get one senior rooster and he will be the one that mates with the hens most regularly. He will also be the one who will try to drive the other roosters away from what will become his hens. It is possible that you may end up with more than one group, each group having a rooster and some hens.
You can keep 1:1 ratios; that is how the chickens ancestors did it.
More hens may help to alleviate fighting.
You could in the short term if you wished keep 4 roosters separated from the rest of the flock. It's not a route I would take, but it can work.
I wrote this article to help people understand how roosters work in a free range setting. It may give you some ideas.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/understanding-your-rooster.75056/

 

[Freysnes]

Okay, what is most likely to happen is you will get one senior rooster and he will be the one that mates with the hens most regularly. He will also be the one who will try to drive the other roosters away from what will become his hens. It is possible that you may end up with more than one group, each group having a rooster and some hens.
You can keep 1:1 ratios; that is how the chickens ancestors did it.
More hens may help to alleviate fighting.
You could in the short term if you wished keep 4 roosters separated from the rest of the flock. It's not a route I would take, but it can work.
I wrote this article to help people understand how roosters work in a free range setting. It may give you some ideas.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/understanding-your-rooster.75056/

Thank you for the article! ill definitely give that a look.
We are only planing on keeping one unfortunately, thus rehoming the rest.
Its going to be difficult since they are all sweet and have become quite fond of us

 

[adstowe]

They are all sweet now, but keep in mind that they are immature and have a lot of changing to do. That's why so many people suggest waiting to decide. One that's sweet now could be a holy terror in 6 months. One that seems a bit shy now and gets overlooked could wind up being a very respectful, well behaved gentleman. There's just no way to tell at this point.

 

[Freysnes]

They are all sweet now, but keep in mind that they are immature and have a lot of changing to do. That's why so many people suggest waiting to decide. One that's sweet now could be a holy terror in 6 months. One that seems a bit shy now and gets overlooked could wind up being a very respectful, well behaved gentleman. There's just no way to tell at this point.

How long do you suggest i give them? As in before i rehome ?

 

[aart]

How long do you suggest i give them? As in before i rehome ?

I slaughter extra cockerels at about 14 weeks old,
still tender enough for the grill but before they start to cause too much chaos.
When to 'remove' them might be a situational decision, but I'd strongly suggest you have somewhere to isolate them ready to go, when they go bad it can happen fast!

Why do you want or need a male bird?
Keep in mind if you plan to hatch out more egg layers you're going to need a plan for the ~50% males that will hatch out.(Maybe you already know this)

 

[Acre4Me]

We have a farm, huge and open space, the coop holds 60 chickens,(There was a running chicken farm here before) and no children.
The plan is to breed these chickens for eggs

Great! This means you have flexibility. When you say "breed for eggs" do you mean to hatch chicks on a routine basis for more egg layers, or are you just interested in the eggs to eat and sell?

If you want to create more chickens, a rooster is needed, of course. If you want the look and sound of a rooster, then you will also need one! If all you want are eggs to sell and eat, you do not need a rooster.

As far as selecting which to keep, then if you know you will get rid of 4 of them and keep only one, you can make some decisions now. If you already have homes for them to go to and the future homes can wait a bit, you can suss out the personality a bit longer. If you think they will become dinner, then you might be wanting to butcher them in the 16-20 week range, but really you can butcher a chicken at any age.

We've had a number of young males of various breeds. Some will assert themselves and show good traits (even with the hormone surge) such as tidbitting for the girls, staying out of your way, and making alarm calls if overhead bird or other thing present .... such as the super-scary black plastic drainpipe I was moving one day... head rooster was making louder and many more alarm calls as compared to when raptors fly overhead . Consider culling the males that begin to look at you like a threat or actually show you aggression (unless they were truly surprised by an unexpected event), aggressiveness to the girls where they are keeping them from eating, patrolling the coop entrance and then jumping on the girls when they come near, etc. These types of behaviors may begin to surface by 14 weeks -20 weeks typically.

Good Luck!

 

[Freysnes]

Hey! These chickens will be bred for eggs and for new layers.
The roosters will be slaughtered and used for meat.
My mother in law runs a huge company, restaurants, hotels and mini markets where we sell the meat from our sheep and chickens as well as eggs.
So getting roos is not a problem.


The family has been dealing with chickens for ages, but i want to make sure im doing everything as absoloutly well as i can, thus all the questions

 

[Ridgerunner]

The only two goals I have seen so far are that you want chickens for eggs and you plan to only keep one rooster. You will re-home the extras and have lots of room though I'm not sure how you will use that room. You are in Iceland. I understand that was considered a temperate climate but that was by people used to Scandinavian winters. So I'm not sure how much of the year they will have good access to the outside so they can forage and play outside. Probably more than I'd expect.

Roosters don't lay eggs so I'm still not sure why you want a rooster. That means I don't have any criteria to help you make that decision. The only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs, anything else is personal preference. Nothing wrong with personal preference, that can be really strong. But it is a choice, not a need.

If you don't want him for fertile eggs and one doesn't really stand out for eye candy or whatever reason you want him, go by behaviors.

If you want him for fertile eggs select the one you would want his offspring to be like. Color and pattern can come into that depending on what colors/patterns your Sussex are but when you crossbreed you can get different things than you'd expect. I'm thinking more on behaviors. Since you are not eating your excess cockerels I'll assume size isn't important. If you keep a Legbar male all his offspring should lay colored eggs, if you keep a Sussex only the chicks from Legbar hens will lay colored eggs..

Your chicks are 12 weeks old. You may already see some differences in behaviors between your cockerels and pullets but fasten your seat belt, you haven't seen anything yet. When the hormones hit the cockerels their behavior will change. Each chicken, cockerel and pullet, have their own personality so you can get quite a bit of differences in individual behaviors, including as they go through puberty. Also, puberty hits some cockerels pretty early, maybe at 12 weeks, but it may not hit others until after 5 months so some behaviors can repeat as different ones hit puberty.

There is another complication. The dominant chicken tends to suppress the behaviors of the non-dominant ones. When you remove a dominant one the others' behaviors can change since the top one is no longer keeping them in check. Sometimes the presence of rivals can stir the dominant one into more severe behaviors.

It can get really complicated when you have mature chickens in with them (maybe next year for you) but with yours this year it will be the cockerels. When the hormones hit the cockerels will want to dominate and become flock master. They do that by fighting and intimidation, but also by mating. When they mate the one on bottom is accepting the dominance of the one on top, either willingly or by force. Pullets are not likely to be willing until they mature enough to start laying so it will almost certainly be by force. It might be one dominant cockerel, it will most likely be a few. You may see fights between cockerels, you may see more running and chasing between the cockerels. Almost certainly you will see cockerels chasing and forcing pullets to mate. It doesn't have anything to do with sex or fertilizing eggs at that stage, it''s about dominance. To me, to a certain extent, this is normal behaviors. As long as no one is being injured I stay out of it. But it can be really hard to watch, especially if you haven't been through it before. I typically hatch and raise about 45 chicks a year, cockerels and pullets together. They have a lot of room, which I think helps. About once every three or four years it gets rowdy enough for me to separate out some cockerels to their own grow-out pen until they reach butcher age. I do watch it and take action based on what I see. Typically when the cockerels mature enough they stop this hormone driven behavior and mature into real roosters. The pullets mature enough to do their part. Once they all mature it typically turns into a very peaceful mature flock, but watching them get there is often not for the faint at heart.

Then there is the human aggression part. It's not that easy to write about. A young cockerel may test his limits with you soon after the hormones hit. We all handle this differently. For some that is an immediate disqualification, I don't blame them for that. I allow a very small amount of posturing but walk toward him until he backs down. They are typically cowards and try to ambush you. If you calmly and slowly walk toward him and give him time to back down he usually does. If he doesn't learn after a couple of times dong this or if he actually attacks me he is gone. Some others are more patient with this behavior than me. I think your attitude has a big effect on this too. If yo are afraid of him he will know and be more aggressive. As I said, other people handle this differently.

The way I decide which one to keep is to first know my goals. My goals are to raise them to eat so size and early maturity are important. I also play with genetics, so certain things there are important to me. I will use them for breeding. So I remove any with obvious flaws or physical problems, plus any that don't suit my goals. I also watch behaviors. I consider certain fighting or mating behaviors normal and natural, but if I see one that is exceptionally brutal he is gone. When cockerels fight it usually doesn't take that long for the loser to decide he's better off running away. I expect the winner to do a little chasing to reinforce his victory but if one is relentless in chasing he's overdoing it. A cockerel will force a pullet but if she is injured, he did too much. It's a matter of degree. It's usually not that hard for me to reduce my 15 to 25 cockerels down to two or three, then it gets hard. But by that time neither of them is that bad of a choice.

One of the problems with this is that cockerels are typically bolder and braver than the pullets, they have more personality. Also, males typically feather out prettier than females. These are usually the ones you fall in love with. Sometimes you have to be strong to let them go.

So my basic suggestion is to determine your criteria based on your goals (not mine) and remove any that disqualify themselves from the flock. You can get rid of them immediately or build a separate pen where you can house them either by themselves or with other cockerels until yo are ready to get rid of them. It's not usually that easy a choice and I'll admit I sometimes make mistakes. Behaviors can change as they mature or when you remove another.

Good luck!

 

[cmom]

Hey! These chickens will be bred for eggs and for new layers.
The roosters will be slaughtered and used for meat.
My mother in law runs a huge company, restaurants, hotels and mini markets where we sell the meat from our sheep and chickens as well as eggs.
So getting roos is not a problem.


The family has been dealing with chickens for ages, but i want to make sure im doing everything as absoloutly well as i can, thus all the questions

Since you want a male for breeding for future layers and meat, pick out the best male that fills that niche so I suspect you will want dual purpose breeds. When you hatch, around half of the chicks will be males. I raise pure (heritage) birds. For everyone of my breeds I have a main male and a backup male so I have several males. Each male has a separate coop and pen with females I have chosen for him. I do show my birds at poultry show so I am very fussy about the birds I use as breeders as I want all of my birds to be potential show quality. I do sell eggs so I have what I call my general populations coops and pens. I also use them as grow-out coops and pens and pick out my future breeders from them. It appears you have somewhat of a plan. Good luck and have fun...