What to do with a womanizing rooster?!?!

I have two roosters and both have their own flock of 8 hen.  Rooster Pavarotti is a marvellous roo: he is all the time actively leading his girls to forage and explore. If he finds a treat, he calls his girls and is always the last one to eat. When one hen got injured he lied next to her. Pavarotti"s flock roam freely around the 11 acre homestead.

Rooster Harald's flock was given to me by a couple who got chickens during the pandemic and now their enthusiasm faded. He is quite passive: when I feed them, he just eats like one of the hen. But he is fiercely protective. When Pavarotti was trying to chase his girls, Harald FLEW to rescue them!

And this is my problem. Pavarotti, the caring and enthusiastic rooster to his hen, becomes a sex-starved maniac when he sees Harald's girls. He will run like a bullet train and tries to mount all of them, just anybody whom he manages to catch. The girls got so stressed I had to restrict Harald's flock to the fenced 1 acre orchard.

Every time I try to let the two flocks mingle, Pavarotti makes it impossible. I don't mind roos fighting, but at my farm girls have the right to live a pleasant life without having to run away from rapists with an overly powerful sex drive!

In the winter, they will have to live under the same roof. But how???

I don't know anything about chickens but have you tried to introduce the roosters to each other without the hens?

I wonder if they get themselves sorted first, it might make the introduction to the hens easier?

I could be wrong though I feel Pavarotti is trying to show his dominance over the other flock to the other rooster.

I feel when winter comes and you have to merge the two flocks together there will be a problem between to to roosters.

For now, my suggestion would be to keep the two flocks where the two roosters cannot see each other.

When the two flocks need to be merged pick the rooster you like best.

It might be possible to put one rooster in isolation for a while and then try to introduce that rooster to the other rooster.

I have never tried to introduce two roosters to each other so I have no idea what will happen.  In the past, all my roosters have grown up with each other as baby chicks.

This is normal competitive behavior. In my experience, if they didn't grow up together, they'll never "sort it out". There will always be strife. One rooster needs to go.

Nathanael Szobody wrote:This is normal competitive behavior. In my experience, if they didn't grow up together, they'll never "sort it out". There will always be strife. One rooster needs to go.

In my experience, even if they did grow up together you get it.  I've had multiple rooster in my flocks before.  It isn't worth it to me.  

Chickens! Never a dull moment, eh?

I've heard of some folks whose roosters get along, but I've never experienced that myself. Any time we've had more than one rooster, the chicken yard is in chaos with constant chasing, fighting, and crowing wars. My experience is that roosters are naturally protective, territorial, and competitive because that's their nature. I don't think it's something that can be trained out of them.

My guess is that the stress would only get worse if they were all housed together. They would likely fight, either to establish pecking order once and for all, or to the death. The other options would be two chicken coops, dividing the current coop into two separate spaces, re-homing Harald, or if you eat chicken, there's that.

My friend had multiple houses and a joint yard and was able to work with multiple roosters, but felt it only worked because she had one larger, powerful dominant rooster who would brook no competition.

I have heard of "brother" roosters growing up together, and co-leading, but it seems to be more "chance" and "personality" than something to plan for.

That said, I totally see benefits from finding a way to keep both roosters for both redundancy and gene pool. We use a portable chicken shelter system, but it is time consuming and expensive to build. However, we have huge predator pressure,  particularly from flying predators, but at time also coons and mink. Without good protection, we simply would have no birds. For some reason, 6 Turkey Vultures were hanging in the field when I got there to collect eggs this morning. They normally won't take live birds, but I have no idea what they were looking for, and they certainly had my birds spooked. Yesterday evening, 2 Eagles went screaming up the field (fighting over territory maybe??? I don't speak Eagle all that well.)

I also recognize that it can be very hard to make some of these tough decisions. I've got a male Muscovy who may have to go to freezer camp. It's one thing to not house him with a second male, but a totally different thing when he seeks out a fight in the other male's territory. I've broken up enough fights which always start with him, so if a better male comes along, I will make that tough decision. In the short term, he has his own shelter with some girls, and Bro has his shelter, but he keeps loosing his girls to egg setting!

As to "rape", I have seen this in some males incubator hatched and raised without adult chicken behavior modelling. A well raised rooster will respect humans as being "boss", call their girls for treats, and "dance" for mating. They may not dance every time, but if there aren't a lot of other distractions, they will woo a hen. Chickens have sounds they make that are a form of communication and non-verbal signals. I have culled males who either had nasty personalities, didn't respect humans, or who were too aggressive with the hens. They normally got some training and intervention prior to the "permanent solution", but if they didn't settle down, they were soup or compost depending on the age.

So if this was me, and money wasn't an issue, I'd keep both males and keep both flocks separate. If that means some creative building has to happen for winter, so be it. If either male is quite young, they may mellow a little as they get older. The trick is giving the boys enough space to get to that point.

Would a chicken tractor for the 2nd flock be a possibility?

Jay Angler wrote:...I have culled males who either had nasty personalities, didn't respect humans, or who were too aggressive with the hens. They normally got some training and intervention prior to the "final solution", but if they didn't settle down, they were soup or compost depending on the age.  

Our chickens (greater than 60 in number) are extremely free-ranging and the different clans have segregated off to one of 4 building choices for shelter.  By day (non-winter) they are out and about and getting into all kinds of scuffles.  Flat out:  We do have too many roosters and the hens are the worse for it, but like street gangs, there are 'protective' roos and most of the hens know who they are.  A hen running away from "the nastys" will run to a protective roo and suddenly the aggressors back off.  Roos in the larger flock tend to die from one of three ways:  Inter-roo battles where one loses and is too damaged to live (he gets offed and is either in the pot or given to the dogs), cases where two young (and highly obnoxious!) roos are fighting and are easy to approach and whack with pole, or the smarter ones where I need to play sniper with the pellet gun and cull them from the flock.  Many of the smart, older "gentle" roos that stay on the periphery of the street gangs easily avoid these fates because of their aloof behavior.  Unfortunately, predation on the flock by hawks/owls and foxes/coyote tends to take the hens... :-(

If you only have two roos to multiple hens, I feel you are doing quite well.  Our observation over many years is that being cooped up in winter settles all of the squabbles for that season, but as spring approaches, they can get feisty again.  As with humans, the squabbles and aggression are mostly over mating rights and opportunities.  As noted by Jay and others, if one or more roos is getting too intolerable, time for them to be culled.  Hope you find an acceptable solution !....

I don't keep roosters anymore but and am ready to ween my ducks of a Musckovy cross drake that has no romantic skills whatsoever. He seems to be gender fluid and no duck is safe from his advances.

While I do agree that some roosters are just jerks... I also want to caution against thinking about chicken "love" and reproduction the same way we think of it for humans. Animals are not humans, and have different ways of doing things. Many of these ways are very foreign to us. They may seem violent, uncaring, gross, uncalled for, etc. This goes for reproduction, parenting, and eating. I think it is a great example of why humans are different than animals. I just worry when people start anthropomorphizing animals that the animals will no longer be able to be themselves.

Matt McSpadden wrote: I just worry when people start anthropomorphizing animals that the animals will no longer be able to be themselves.

Most domestic animals already aren't allowed to be themselves. Temple Grandin did some excellent work about how humans can better set up their farm and in particular, processing, situations to work with the animals' needs and characteristics while still getting farm needs met.

Animals may not "love" the same way that humans do, but personally, as I currently care for a gosling with a problem, I can recognize different sounds it makes that are designed to help it get its needs met. I'm not sure what that would be defined as. We possibly need a word and a state that's between anthropomorphizing and treating animals as if they have no capacity for feelings at all. Their feelings may not correspond to how a human would feel in the same situation, but that doesn't mean they don't have them.

Time for a chicken dinner.  There is no cure for this one.

@Jay,
I absolutely agree that animals have feelings, and express them different ways. I also agree that many farm animals are not allowed to be themselves.

Take chickens for example. On one extreme you have them living in a building, in a small cage, with artificial light, surrounded by thousands of chickens, and no access to outside. I think this is mistreating the chickens, because the chicken cannot be a chicken. On the other extreme, people treat them like babies. Putting diapers on them, putting clothes on them, keeping them inside all the time where they cannot scratch of be with other chickens. And I think that is also not allowed the chicken to be a chicken. Chickens are designed to be outside in a group with real dirt and plants to scratch around in. I believe people should care for their animals, I just don't think they should treat them like humans. Treat chickens like chickens and pigs like pigs and goats like... the spirit of Houdini :)

I have heard several youtubers reiterate the idea of only one bad day. I think that is a good goal. The question to ask is what does that good day look like for a chicken? Not what does a good day look like for a chicken I am treating like a baby.

IMO Pavarotti is the better rooster. Unless he is aggressive to humans. I would eat Harald and let Pavarotti lead the whole flock.

If the hens are getting stressed by the situation, that is when I would intervene. YOU feel that each roo should be happy with 8 hens, [it is, after all the standard recommendation], but that may not be how the girls or their roos feel.
The main reason for having 1 roo for 8 hens is if you want every egg to be fertilized. But do you? Do you want them to rear their own chicks?  If you don't, having every egg fertilized becomes a lot less important.
I was in your situation 3 cycles ago and I took the weak roo out: The hens were running ragged and trying to avoid both roos. Also, they were not gaining in weight. Their pitiful ragged look did it for me: The girls were not happy.
The 2 roos were fighting constantly. It was untenable. Something had to give. Once I was rid of the weaker roo, the dominating roo was more attentional to every hen: He did not have to stop constantly to defend his dominance.
The hens  were much happier too. If you do want them to raise their own, one roo is fine too. Depending on the race, you may have more than one hen brooding, so you will still have plenty baby chicks. a hen will sit quite a few eggs with ease for 21 days. Mark the date the eggs were laid. After 21 days, the eggs should start hatching. if they go much beyond their 21 days, the hen may get rid of those she cannot hear all by herself... or you may intervene if when she tends to the born chicks she has to stay off the nest too long. After 27 days, I would remove every eggs that has not hatched to save the brooding hen. [Some of them don't know when to quit and they eat very little when they are brooding.]
While you are at it, you might want to check their spurs: In some breeds, they can grow quite long and injure their girls. They do not have a mechanism to shorten their own spurs. If you choose to keep both roos, it would also insure their own safety: with shorter spurs, they could not injure each other.