Different breed rooster?

[demb]

Hey guys,
New at chickens here, may be a silly question but was looking at getting a Rooster we have Rhode Island Reds, 47 of them, they are starting to fight and have been told a rooster will sort them out. I've come across some other breeds of roosters near to us I can pick up one is a Barnebelder, just checking if I can put a different breed rooster with these chickens as I would like to try having chicks later but not sure how that works with different breeds of chickens?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Welcome to the forum! Glad you joined us!

Chickens don't care about breeds. Breeds are a human invention. Any breed rooster will mate any breed hen. Its best if the breeds are similar sized and not a bantam with a large fowl, but even then they will try and usually succeed. Roosters are normally larger than the hens of the same breed, so don't worry about that in size. They can easily accommodate that size difference.

If you mix breeds, you have mixed breed chickens. Those are usually called mutts on this forum. Unless you plan to show chickens or have a specific reason to keep your flock one breed, it makes absolutely no difference to the chickens if they are mixed or pure. The resulting chicks will have appearance and production traits from both parents so select breeds you will be happy with. To the chickens it does not matter.

I have no idea what you mean by "fighting". Chickens fight. That's how they determine and maintain the pecking order. Once the pecking order is established there is usually very little fighting, but there will still occasionally be pecking or maybe an occasional fight. I don't know the ages of your chickens either. If some or all are adolescents, it is probably just a pecking order thing. If they have enough space so the ones being pecked or that lose the fight can get away from the victor, they work things out. If you have them shoehorned into the least possible space, you might have a problem.

A good dominant rooster will maintain order in his flock. That means he will probably break up fights if he is around. Not all roosters are good. People will tell you one breed is better at this than another. I don't believe that for a minute. You can get good or bad roosters from any breed.


To do this, the rooster has to be old enough to be the dominant chicken in the flock. That's where the age of your flock becomes important. Mature hens will not accept an immature rooster. When is a rooster mature enough? That depends on your flock and the rooster. I’ve had roosters around 4 months old that did a pretty good job. I’ve had roosters 10 months old that can’t do it. It depends on your individual rooster and your individual hens. If you have mature egg-laying hens in your flock, I’d suggest a rooster at least a year old. If you have an immature flock, a rooster a couple of months older than your oldest pullets will probably do.

One rooster will probably not be able to keep 47 hens fertile. He’ll try and a hen will probably lay fertile eggs for about 2 weeks after a mating, but the rooster does not have a little black book where he keeps track of past matings. He has no way to know if a hen is fertile or not. He mates randomly and he just won’t get around to that many hens every two weeks. A lot of the eggs will be fertile but some almost certainly will not. How many roosters do you need? That depends on how you manage them and the individual rooster. Young roosters are more active than older roosters so you need fewer. Commercial operations that produce hatching eggs have found that they need about one rooster for every 10 to 12 hens if those chickens are confined to the minimum space. It’s called the pen breeding system. They might have 20 roosters in with 200 hens. I find with a free ranging flock and a fairly young healthy rooster, you need a lot less roosters. How many you need to assure that almost all the eggs will be fertile depends on your circumstances. For 47 hens if they have lots of room to roam two might work but three should be plenty.

If you put two or more roosters with a flock, they will fight to determine which one is the dominant rooster. They can fight to the death or they will work out an accommodation. The more room you have, the more likely they are to work out an accommodation. It also depends on the individual personality of the individual rooster. Those commercial operations regularly take out older roosters and add younger roosters to keep the fertility level up. There are going to be fights. Even in those crowded conditions, they usually work it out, but not always.

If you think the pecking order fights between hens are vicious, you will not be happy with dominance fights between roosters. If you want hatching eggs you have to have roosters and with that many hens, you need a few roosters. Chickens have developed a system called the pecking order that allows them to live in flocks together fairly peacefully, but setting up and maintaining that social order can involve fighting and what appears to us to be brutality. It’s actually just chickens being chickens.

 

[centrarchid]

A problem with a 47-hen flock is that is too many for any rooster. He will not be able cover / mate with them all, nor will he be able to keep them as a group. He can cover effectively maybe 10 but keep only about half that many as part of is harem. Balance will form their own social groups and deal with issues accorsding to their own rules.

With such large flocks where economics not a major factor, then more roosters in the range of 10 to 15 make for more social structure. With more roosters, if adequate range and feeding resources and roosting sites, you can keep multiple roosters with minimal strife. Problems I have with nongame roosters is when you have more than one but not enough to avoid setting up the simple linear heirarchy. For me, go one or go more than 10.

 

[Mrs. K]

If you are getting multiple roosters, get roosters that have been raised together, do not try and introduce roosters that are strangers to each other and starngers to the flock

 

[demb]

Thank you soo much for your help, very insiteful and very informative. I appreciate the help. I will have to think about the need for a rooster and what sort of fighting their doing, I'll pay more attention when I feed them tomorrow. Thank you again, it means so much that people would share their knowledge so much!

 

[new at chicken]

Well did you know that turkeys often stop fighting roosters from fighting i have two and every time they fight my turkey gets in the way and handels it quick.