need advice on how to manage rooster fighting

[Mrs. K]

You really just have to watch and see. Do have a way to separate them, like a 5 ft handled fish net. Do have leather gloves. Do have a place to put one or two birds to separate them.

Have that at hand, and wait and see.

I will say, that last summer I had two cockerels, brood brothers that did not fight and it seemed to be working out well. I had a friend that needed a boy, and I sent one on his way. Thing is, tension in the flock, which I had not been aware of until it was gone, decreased dramatically.

The hens seemed much happier, and much calmer. It was almost like they had been walking around on egg shells, just waiting.

Keeping the least amount is best. I have a dozen hens, one rooster is more than enough.

Mrs K

 

[Folly's place]

I agree with @Mrs. K , it's not just 'are the boys fighting', it's about how stressed the pullets and hens might be.
We currently have two roosters, one cockerel, and 28 females, and there's no fighting. However, I think that the cockerel is 'extra', and everyone will be more settled when he leaves.
Plans change, we were going to keep him, but I think that the ladies will be happier without him.
Mary

 

[FlockVillemaire]

This is all very reassuring, we raised 10 little hatched chicks, let them free range from pretty early on, all different breeds. We lost my favorite to a coyote, and currently have four hens and five roosters. They're all brood Brothers of course, and at the moment they have a free ranging bachelor flock because we locked up the hens to avoid fights or over mating. Oh poor little hands are only cooped at the moment, we are hoping to give them back their freedom soon.

So the plan was to buy 16 more laying pullets around their age (they're all 6 months), and then butcher a few of our roosters. We're hoping to keep three roosters, but I was wondering if only two would be better?

Right now our alpha is a blue Australorp who I love dearly (he matured faster than the rest of them, and protected all of them growing up, he would fluff up his feathers and all of them would nestle underneath his wings during the night, and he was always making sure they got good scraps, etc).

Of our four other roosters, we have one Old English game, one Old English game x Sussex cross, one Rhode Island red, and one Rhode Island red x Easter egger cross.

We were thinking of butchering the two Rhode Island Reds since people said RIRs roosters tend to get more human aggressive. But should we butcher the old English game too? I was a little nervous since his breed was originally bred for cockfighting, but I guess that was 170 years ago...

Anyways, do you think 20 hens would be enough for three roosters if they were brood brothers?

Any thoughts?

Three roos (either completely separated or with excellent record keeping) is considered the minimum for sustainability in the Spiral Breeding System and 20 hens/3 roos is just a bit under recommended. Since they are BroodBros, they'll likely be more accommodating of eachother, so separate housing may not be necessary.

As far as culling your RIR, that breed is required for many highly desirable hybrids, so if possible, keeping him might be a better idea. For a breeding roo, you'd want to consider his likely genetics that you would like to hatch out in his offspring with the hens you have.

When I begin breeding this spring, I'll put select hens in a small coop/run for a month before adding the roo I hope to have father their chicks to clear any other sperm held in them. My first breeding project will be sex-linked Olive Eggers parented by my barred blue or green egger hens and my Black Copper Marans. Maybe I'll add one or both of my (barred) Light Brahmas? Later, I might test my Alchemist Egger against my white egger hens to see what egg color genetics he has? And then later some meatier breeds? (I am very curious to see which of my POL pullets will be broodiest to hatch them out! My original Olive Egger surprised me, helping raise my roos, but taught them all to distrust me. I'll hopefully have a more biddable broody to raise these project chicks.)

 

[Toffael]

I hatched 4 eggs in an incubator nearly 18 weeks ago. Three are roosters and one beautiful little girl. The three boys just started crowing 3 days ago and when I looked out at them about 20 minutes ago, one was fighting one of his brood-brother hatchling mates. So, I got one of them out and separated him. Then, within a couple of minutes, the same aggressor went after his other brother. So, I got that one out and put him with the first one. OKAY, so now...those two weren't fighting each other at all, so I went back in and got the aggressive one, put the other two back with the 10 girls and left the bad boy in one run alone. He drew blood on both of the others, so I guess we know who has to go. He is the one that my husband thought was the prettiest so it's gonna be hard. I like all three and they're still young so they're not aggressive to us at all. But this is part of it when you hatch too many roos, I guess.

I was thinking that two roosters for 10 girls would be fine for fertilization purposes, and knew that 3 boys for the 10 girls was just TOO many. It still may be too many with the two, but we'll see how it goes. I would prefer 10 girls for each, but I don't have that many yet.

my advice having tried to keep 2 roosters for 10 hens, is it’s one too many.
I still have 2, but it’s been a lot of work trying to get them to behave. and i know it will be an ongoing task. so if you’re prepared to do the work, then you might get away with it.

if you keep 2, make sure you have an automatic coop door, so both can get out before sunrise, that the run is big enough for both to have distinct areas, and that the run has lots of ‘get away’ areas, tunnels, and high perches for the submissive rooster to easily escape to, when he gets attacked by the dominant rooster.

They will fight,, and you have to allow for those fights to happen, so the dominant rooster can establish himself and the weaker can submit. The key observation to look out for is that the dominant rooster ‘accepts’ the defeat from the submissive one. If he doesn’t, he will seek the hurt or kill the other.

One or the other will likely cut his whattle or comb during the fights, and these bleed a lot, but the bloody mess looks alot worse than it is.

use corn startch to clog the cut, and poultry antiseptic spray to keep it from getting infected. get these in advance
highly recommend you also listen to this

good luck!

 

[Atchurch]

my advice having tried to keep 2 roosters for 10 hens, is it’s one too many.
I still have 2, but it’s been a lot of work trying to get them to behave. and i know it will be an ongoing task. so if you’re prepared to do the work, then you might get away with it.

if you keep 2, make sure you have an automatic coop door, so both can get out before sunrise, that the run is big enough for both to have distinct areas, and that the run has lots of ‘get away’ areas, tunnels, and high perches for the submissive rooster to easily escape to, when he gets attacked by the dominant rooster.

They will fight,, and you have to allow for those fights to happen, so the dominant rooster can establish himself and the weaker can submit. The key observation to look out for is that the dominant rooster ‘accepts’ the defeat from the submissive one. If he doesn’t, he will seek the hurt or kill the other.

One or the other will likely cut his whattle or comb during the fights, and these bleed a lot, but the bloody mess looks alot worse than it is.

use corn startch to clog the cut, and poultry antiseptic spray to keep it from getting infected. get these in advance
highly recommend you also listen to this

good luck!

Thanks for all of that! I think that we're going to cull two pretty soon. For now, we keep the two who aren't fighting together and the other one separated. But every other day, we allow the one, in with the girls, then swap out for the other two to be with them. We'll watch everybody for a week or so, then decide who gets to stay.

Another interesting development is that the two have gone after their other hatch-mate. We thought it had to be a girl because it's only half the others' sizes. They're all half BR and half RIR (RIR is their daddy), so I just figured it was a girl.

If that's the case, as small as it is, it's showing to be the sweetest to us and has more of a personality. So that'd be the one we keep and cull three. We're watching and waiting.