Is my pekin bantam male or female?

[PeckyBeak]

Our rooster, Gilbert, currently sleeps in a wooden house on his own and has a separate run to the girls but is let out twice a day on his own to free-range. I am keeping him separate as he has caused a lot of feather damage to the girls, and I will only let him be with them on occasions. He seems ok with this.

We have however recently hatched some chicks and I am wanting to keep 2 boys for future pairing with certain girls.

To do this we need to build a home for the new boys and I wondered if we need to make a separate box and run for each, like Gilbert's, or can roosters tolerate each other, sleeping and during part of the day in a run. They boys would be allowed out together but not with the girls unless I wanted to start the breeding.

Would this work? If so we would put all three boys together.

[Tweety]

I would be very interested to find out opinions on this topic too. I have a Pekin rooster living in a WIR with 6 lovely bantam hens, but recently hatched some chicks one of whom is a boy and the other 6 are girls. I have got the room for 2 separate harems, but wondered if I would be able to have them all together at some stage.

My SIL had 3 roosters living together with about 10 hens, and she said that they were fine, so it seems that it can be done.

[Redwing]

Cockerels raised together are usually fine if they are away from the females

 

Adding a younger cockerel to an older cock bird is usually ok provided there are no females in sight, one will normally let the other be the boss and will keep out of his way, you have to carefully supervise this situation

 

A flock of males will have a pecking order the same as a laying flock

 

Its adding the females that causes the trouble or even having them in sight!

 

If you want to have two boys running with a flock of girls they need plenty of girls, lots of room and an understanding that one male will be lesser than the other

 

Sometimes any solution doesnt work out and the males will fight so they have to be separated for their own good

 

A solitary life isnt great but I have had to split up groups of cockerels before and would do again for their own safety so be prepared to rig up the necessary number of coops and runs!

[atsw]

When I raised seven pekin chicks in 2009, four turned out to be boys (all great looking birds).

 

 

They were very happy together until the three pekin girls came into lay. At that point all hell broke out and I had to re-home three of the boys, just keeping the frizzle.

 

Andrew

[Jools]

I'd be prepared to keep them all separately to be safe, then if you find they can spend some time together, you can let them.

 

My experiences of keeping boys together haven't often been successful. I've had a fight to the death between two (father and son) and what would have been a fight to the death had I not been around to stop it (and re-home one) between two brothers who had happily lived together until they reached maturity .

 

On the plus side, I've had 26 cockerels living together, but they went in the freezer before their hormones kicked in. And I have two mature cocks who can tolerate each other from late autumn to very early spring, at which point they would fight but one is very submissive and keeps on running! I house them separately from May - October.

 

Space is pretty critical. I don't think I'd ever risk penning two cocks together (with or without hens) at any time of year.

[Mr Rhode Island Red]

If they lived together as chicks and for most of their lives, they should be fine. If you have hens running with them you do need a lot of girls to keep them happy, I think it's about 1 cockerel per 10 hens

 

Regards

 

MR RIR