young cockerals already mating?? and very mean about it?

[sarahswank]

I have 3 3-month old roosters. (Had more, but culled out a few) I added some other new bantams, who unfortunatly turned out to be mostly roos. these guys are only 2.5 months old. I was going to let them mature out before we decieded to cull. but they are already crowing, something only one of my older roos does, and in the past week they have started grabbing hens by the head and hoping on them like they are attempting to mate.(none of the older roos attempt to mate yet) No dance, just a sudden violent attack. It wouldnt be so bad, execept ALL of my bantam roos are doing this and they are of course mostly picking on the bantam hens. (they cant hold down a full grown hen yet.)

I assume they are just being early bloomers and mating, right? also, will they grow out of the violence to the hens? I dont want rude roosters who will overmate hens (atleast not if I can help it) so I am trying to deciede weither to cull them now for this behavior or lock them away from the hens and pullets and risk reintroducing them back with my other more mature roos at a different time. (So far they blended in nicely, so I hate to disrupt the balance because I am estimateing I will need atleast 4 roos but maybe even 5)

 

[Judy]

They are at the "teenage" stage when the hormones are really flowing. They may calm down some -- or not. They might do better if they are not with the females for now, especially if they can't see and hear them, because part of the uproar is competition.

 

[jbs]

I feel your pain. I've never had roosters before and am completely overwhelmed by my four males that are each about 4 months old. One of them can be kept with my 4 month old pullets, he mates with a few of them but isn't overly aggressive, the other 3 males have been ok with my adult hens - until recently. The alpha male in the group has started attacking my hens. Last night I broke up a fight that left one of my hens with a bloody head. He's currently separated from everyone while I try to figure out of I should take him to a processor or just shoot him in the head and throw his body into the woods. I was going to try to keep 2 of the males, but I'm wondering if I should take all 4 to the processor and just be done with it.

I've got 26 females total, half are adults a few years old, the other half are 4 month olds. I've been trying to evaluate the males to figure out which 2 roosters might be able to co-exhist, but I'm new to roosters and totally overwhelmed.

 

[sarahswank]

oops, I just realized I had a typo, my 3 older roosters are 6 months old...

They are at the "teenage" stage when the hormones are really flowing. They may calm down some -- or not. They might do better if they are not with the females for now, especially if they can't see and hear them, because part of the uproar is competition.

No place far enough that they will not be able to hear the hens, But i could block their sight. Am I just asking for trouble though If I put the 5 trouble making roos together where they could hear the girls and hear other roos but couldnt see anyone but the other 5 in the pen? I would keep my 3 older guys with the girls, they are doing soo good about hawk alerts to the girls.

I feel your pain. I've never had roosters before and am completely overwhelmed by my four males that are each about 4 months old. One of them can be kept with my 4 month old pullets, he mates with a few of them but isn't overly aggressive, the other 3 males have been ok with my adult hens - until recently. The alpha male in the group has started attacking my hens. Last night I broke up a fight that left one of my hens with a bloody head. He's currently separated from everyone while I try to figure out of I should take him to a processor or just shoot him in the head and throw his body into the woods. I was going to try to keep 2 of the males, but I'm wondering if I should take all 4 to the processor and just be done with it.

I've got 26 females total, half are adults a few years old, the other half are 4 month olds. I've been trying to evaluate the males to figure out which 2 roosters might be able to co-exhist, but I'm new to roosters and totally overwhelmed.

yeah, culling roos is a crappy job. I had to do it once, but some made it easy for me by being a bit too human-pushy at such a young age and being constantly a slow grower.

 

[jbs]

Sarahswank, how many females total do you have in your flock? What sort of ratio are you shooting for with hens to roosters? I have 26 females total and have heard one rooster for 8-10 hens, but i can't possily deal with three of my roosters. A BYC user was nice enough to PM me and suggest that i process my two most aggressive cockerels and see how the other two work out. I think that's what i'm going to do. My fear is that once i remove alpha and beta, the other two will take their places, but it will make my life a bit easier for now.

We don't have separate housing for roosters, but my husband is building something that we can use in the future. Right now my hens get locked into one side of the coop, my pullets on the other, and everyone free ranges during the day. I've been moving the roosters around, and that has created trouble, because as soon as Alpha rooster is out of the picture, Beta thinks that he is alpha and when i put them back together they have to fight to sort things out again. If i had all the cockerels locked up together out of sight of females, maybe they'd all get along, but the alpha has pecked the two lowest males pretty badly. They run and hide from him and he keeps after them, way after they've surrendered, pecking themuntil he's torn their combs and they bleed. Is that normal rooster behavior or is he an especially aggressive rooster? When he gave one of my hens a bloody head he pretty much sealed his fate.

 

[sarahswank]

Sarahswank, how many females total do you have in your flock? What sort of ratio are you shooting for with hens to roosters? I have 26 females total and have heard one rooster for 8-10 hens, but i can't possily deal with three of my roosters. A BYC user was nice enough to PM me and suggest that i process my two most aggressive cockerels and see how the other two work out. I think that's what i'm going to do. My fear is that once i remove alpha and beta, the other two will take their places, but it will make my life a bit easier for now.

We don't have separate housing for roosters, but my husband is building something that we can use in the future. Right now my hens get locked into one side of the coop, my pullets on the other, and everyone free ranges during the day. I've been moving the roosters around, and that has created trouble, because as soon as Alpha rooster is out of the picture, Beta thinks that he is alpha and when i put them back together they have to fight to sort things out again. If i had all the cockerels locked up together out of sight of females, maybe they'd all get along, but the alpha has pecked the two lowest males pretty badly. They run and hide from him and he keeps after them, way after they've surrendered, pecking themuntil he's torn their combs and they bleed. Is that normal rooster behavior or is he an especially aggressive rooster? When he gave one of my hens a bloody head he pretty much sealed his fate.

I have 49 hens. I would like to aim toward 1 roo for every 10 hens (5 roos), but only haveing 4 roos would be ok too. I hate to go to only 3 roos because it leaves no room for something to happen to one of the roos without having to bringing in another and risk having fighting.


What I did when I had to introduce what ended up being mostly roos for seperate housing is use cheap chicken wire and sectioned off a section inside the coop. (you could pick on of the sides like the hen side) so they could still sort of fight, but not really get a good grab to hurt eachother. The fighting though the fence allowed everyone to work out the pecking order for the most part without a serious fight.