help with roos

[chommy]

hello, im new here
i recently got 6 buff orpington chickens, 2 of which we are sure are roosters. last year when i got my flock we got 4 roosters from what were sopost to be pullets and i had trouble raising them correctly. sadly we had to re home 2 and kill one. recently we rehoused the third, he was my favorite but he was becoming mean to others. now that i have buff orpingtons i would like to know how to raise roosters correctly so i have nice roosters that preferably wont try to gang up on my when i got my head turned . any help is great and much appreciated

 

[JadeFarms]

I like to spend as much time with the ones I know are males. I like to spend at least 15 minutes a day with them. I also want to hand feed them and they turned out great. Orpingtons are great breeds so they should end up fine.

 

[Tre3hugger]

There are a few thoguths on this. Some say you should handle and baby the rooster. Others say you should ignore it, walk through it when doing chicken chores, and scare it away if it starts to side eye you. Either way i'm afraid two roosters will be too many for your 6 hens to handle. You really want 1 rooster for 10 or less hens or the roos will probably fight and the girls will probably be bedraggled from being overbred.

 

[Mrs. K]

To raise good rooster, I am of the opinion that you have better odds, if you have a great deal of space, space enough for 12-15 hens. Not because 10, 12, 15 are magical numbers, but if you have that many birds, you have a lot more space. Roosters take more space that hens. I would want space for 20-30 hens to keep two roosters.

And I think you get better roosters if they are raised by chickens in a multi-generational flock. The older chickens are bigger, and higher than the cockerels in pecking order, and that tends to reduce the bully behavior.

And to raise good roosters, you need a sharp knife. Not all roosters will work. They are a crap shoot. Sometimes you will get a great rooster, even if you do everything 'wrong' according to experienced chicken keepers, and sometimes, no matter how you do it, you get a rotten rooster, or he is good for a while and then goes rotten. Whenerver you have roosters, you need a plan B, and that often times means removing him from the flock.

If you have children under the age of 6, if the flock is truly in the backyard, sharing the playspace with chickens, if you keep them just as pets, if this is your first year as a keeper I recommend no roosters. Roosters take experience.

Mrs K

 

[chommy]

There are a few thoguths on this. Some say you should handle and baby the rooster. Others say you should ignore it, walk through it when doing chicken chores, and scare it away if it starts to side eye you. Either way i'm afraid two roosters will be too many for your 6 hens to handle. You really want 1 rooster for 10 or less hens or the roos will probably fight and the girls will probably be bedraggled from being overbred.

thankyou for the advice =), also the 6 chicks are added to the 8 we already have, we also will have 4 new ones coming soon, one actualy hatched today =), how many hens can 1 rooster handle?

 

[chommy]

To raise good rooster, I am of the opinion that you have better odds, if you have a great deal of space, space enough for 12-15 hens. Not because 10, 12, 15 are magical numbers, but if you have that many birds, you have a lot more space. Roosters take more space that hens. I would want space for 20-30 hens to keep two roosters.

And I think you get better roosters if they are raised by chickens in a multi-generational flock. The older chickens are bigger, and higher than the cockerels in pecking order, and that tends to reduce the bully behavior.

And to raise good roosters, you need a sharp knife. Not all roosters will work. They are a crap shoot. Sometimes you will get a great rooster, even if you do everything 'wrong' according to experienced chicken keepers, and sometimes, no matter how you do it, you get a rotten rooster, or he is good for a while and then goes rotten. Whenerver you have roosters, you need a plan B, and that often times means removing him from the flock.

If you have children under the age of 6, if the flock is truly in the backyard, sharing the playspace with chickens, if you keep them just as pets, if this is your first year as a keeper I recommend no roosters. Roosters take experience.

Mrs K

thankyou, thankfully this is my second year, are there any ways to tell if an orpington is a boy or a girl?

 

[Mrs. K]

Usually a difference in size, and comb and wattle begin to redden long before 4 months.