lots of roosters?....

We have a bunch of Roosters growing up together..some i might like to keep to see about hatching some more of varieties that i really like the looks of. Currently I have one Silver laced Wandotte roo who probably comes from questionable genetics and another beauty Tony our Ameraucana Rooster from the right side of the tracks. I also have Barnevelders, Blue laced Red Wyandottes, Black Copper marans, Delaware and some olive eggers and Ameraucana. Question is...how well will all these roosters get along.
Some of you might recall the post about our nasty rooster who we are eating tonight....he started beating up the SLW. Will they eventually all just fight for the girls? Do I need to decide who i am keeping? do i need to keep the others separate from the main flock. Will the hens be tormented?

thanks for the advice..there will be many more questions from this little chickie-poo

If I were you, and I'm not, but if I were, I would put all the roosters in a pen and let them duke it out. My thoughts. I have done that this year with roosters and it seemed to all work out well. Figure out how many you are going to take to the processor and make a reservation, they are so close to you. I'm not sure if I am answering your question. I had 7 buff orpington and cochin males in a grow out pen for the last 2 weeks of their life. They were beginning to bother girls that were getting to the point of lay (they were same age) and they had to be moved. I have another area where I am growing out 7 barnevelder, destined for freezer camp in about 4 weeks. They have no clue what a girl looks like, smiling. They still have a little go at each other every morning, the rooster feathers sticking out on the neck, the face offs, staring into one another's eyes, one backs down always. No blood. But I think that is because they are growing without female. Same as with the other group of 7 that I segregated. No females to fight over, I think the fighting is lessened to almost null. You need to get the males away from the females. I have heard of people losing females because too many males were trying to whomp them. One comes to mind, a friend of mine, and I was pissed right off. Had 5 males in a pen with one poor female (these were cochins), they killed her. I was ready to feel like killing him too, made mention that he must be smarter than that and understand that one cannot be with 5. Guess he just didn't know, he learned a hard lesson. Geeeze, again, have I helped to answer your question? Hope you find resolution that makes you feel comfortable. There will be other comments. Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

I'm in desperate need to separate my boys from my girls, and I'll be doing it this weekend come hell or high water.  I house them all together as long as they can't get to the girls.  They'll fight eachother on occasion, but as long as they can't touch a girl, it doesn't usually go very far.

Its best if you can keep them way away from the hens, as then it's just boys being boys -- women ruin everything

That said, I do have 2 roosters that will try and kill eachother if kept too close together. One always surrenders, his head down like an ostrich, the other doesn't stop and would kill that one particular rooster.

I have a bachelor pen. All the males go in there. Even the mature fellow. Just as the cockerels are coming of age to bother the pullets, they go in that pen. The older fellow (I usually have one PChant mature male that stays year after year for breeding) keeps the peace. No fighting in my b-pen on his watch. I grow them all out in there and then choose my breeders. The others go off to freezer camp.
I really find there is not much fighting. Right now there is the older rooster, 19, 18, 17 week olds and 14 week olds in there. It is funny because the young fellows hang out with the rooster a lot. I think they don't get picked on that way.
They are a little crowded right now, but I confine them and feed them hard for the next month or so and then they will visit the processor. This year I may take the keepers out sooner.

I had a bachelor pen last year and it worked out great. (They were all Easter Eggers). I am not so sure this year, as I have marans for the first time and 2 of the birchens are just awful to each other. I tried putting one of the orpington X roos in with them, and he totally got jumped on. I might try again and put all 4 of the OrpX's in at the same time and see what happens. So that said, I think it depends on the breed. If you have some fighters in with some lazy boys, the lazy boys might get picked on a little too much. I personally would move the boys in together at night, and make sure you're around the next day or 2 to see how it's getting along. Good luck!

I agree. That's how I've done it in the past: Moving them together at night.

In the morning if I go in and someone's fighting, I pull the one who's winning (or I think is) out and confine them in a small, uncomfortable space for a couple hours before throwing them back in (dog crate!). They seem to end up a little disoriented and don't try getting into fights right away.

THAT has not worked with Baykon and the other Chant roo I have. I like Baykon, but I don't want overly agressive roos, so he may hit the pot.

Oh I had to mention this cause it was funny. About the rooster grow out pen. As I said, I had 7 males that went for processing last week (well, the 6th). Four were of the crowing, mating age, 3 were not, they were 19 weeks old compared to 24 weeks, approximately. I had to take them out of my chick grow out coop because there were females that were coming to the point of lay....lots of them...and the boys were annoying the crap out of them. so out they went. I made a small partition on part of my Daughter's horse stall. Still lots of room for the horses to walk about, turn, drink, eat, poop, whatever. but it was perfect, nice and cool, lots of stuff to rumage around in, and safe, made sure of that, safe from horses, and other things that go bump in nights. Well, my ding dang. Having that bunch of dudes (four crowing) in that area made for such an echo. Not really sure why, because of earth and walls of the barn and shop adjacent to one of the walls, but it did. I could hear those fellows begin long before the sun rose her beautiful head, and they were LOUD. (Farmchiq you would be glad they didn't go to a boxstall at your place  , yoooooouda killed me, but maybe you would not have heard them from the house at your place). I think it was because they were at the back of the one paddock and the only way to send the voices was straight northward, it made the voices go far. I even laughed harder. The night that I moved the roosters there, and holy crap broke loose with crowing, a friend came to visit and stay for a bit in his fifth wheel. He was right adjacent to the horse paddock and barn. Right beside his bedroom window. Oh man, I felt so bad for this fellow. I know he told me he was going to make rooster pies   (think he had intention of lopping heads) (you know I am goshing here, right???). but ya, what a racket. Hmmmm....I wonder why I put this little story in this thread. I dunno. Sometimes I am compelled to say things and just cannot stop those thoughts that go from my head, down my arms, through my fingers and end up on some keys on my laptop and then who knows where it goes from there. Obviously to my friends on the forum, to tell a tale. Wishes for a beautiful day for us all, CynthiaM.

They can make a racket when they are all trying to outdo each other.
My bachelor pen is a little different.  The cockerels that went in there were just only beginning to crow.  Testing it out, practicing a bit, sounding like broken toys.  When I put them in there with the old rooster, not a peep!  He is the only one crowing in there.  None of them want to draw attention to their maturing hormones!!  Flying under the radar for sure.
So unlike you CynthiaM, I have a pen full of pretty coloured testosterone, and only one makes any noise at all!  

My roosters all get on the crow-boat at the same time as well. I do have one though, haven't figured out which one, just heard it, who ruins everything.

There's generally a pattern, thus the cock-a-doodle-doo adage to the sound. The boys will get going and (I assume a young one) another will chime in and you end up with "Cock-aAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" and the trill never finishes the pattern, it's like he gets the first syllable and resorts to screaming. One of the girls will always make a growling noise and the crowing will cease.

Makes me think of a drunk friend stumbling into the party and ruining it for the rest of the friends.

I pen the girls together. Then a separate pen for the boys I keep. Then another pen to grow out the ones I want to eat. Finally I let a few wander loose on the property to eat bugs and look pretty.

This year I decided to have 2 ckl pens and its working great so far.  As the chicks mature enough to tell their gender without a doubt, I move them into a large cockerel growing pens.  One pen is for those that look like they will make good breeding quality roosters the other is for those I am growing out to butcher.  The 'cull' pen has 37 young cockerels plus my 2 adult Cochin roosters which have always been buddies and always get along fine.  They keep order amongst the young hooligans.  I feed them well and hope to get them up to a decent butcher weight by the end of September.

The other pen has the breeder/show ckls and they also have one adult rooster in with them.  I'm finding this system works well because if males are put together when they are young and raised together I can often keep my few favorite males living together through the winter which really helps!

Sweetened wrote:My roosters all get on the crow-boat at the same time as well.  I do have one though, haven't figured out which one, just heard it, who ruins everything.

There's generally a pattern, thus the cock-a-doodle-doo adage to the sound.  The boys will get going and (I assume a young one) another will chime in and you end up with "Cock-aAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" and the trill never finishes the pattern, it's like he gets the first syllable and resorts to screaming.  One of the girls will always make a growling noise and the crowing will cease.

Makes me think of a drunk friend stumbling into the party and ruining it for the rest of the friends.

 

My plan for Saturday is to clean out the old coop that we have used for storage.....12 years of storage. I want to move the young boys there, allow them to mature over the winter and decide who lives and who makes soup in the spring. My youngsters are 7 weeks old and I am just starting to be able to tell who's who. The coop is sound....just needs new wire for the run.