Ideally you should have at least 10 hens for each rooster in your flock. Having a proper hen to rooster ratio in your flock will prevent rooster fights and keep the hens from becoming stressed out by too much rooster attention.
How many hens per rooster? A rooster in his prime should be kept with 10-12 hens. However if you put him in a flock of 20 or more hens he will still consider them all to be his and be possessive about them.
Generally---and especially when you want to keep multiple roosters---there should be 10 or 12 hens for each male in your flock. That will enable the roosters to have plenty of hens each, without worrying too much about competition from their rivals, and it will also be enough so that the hens dont' get too overbred.
The absolute minimum number of hens for one rooster should be three or four and even this can be problematic depending on your breed of rooster.
A rooster may mate from 10 to 30 or more times per day, depending on the availability of hens and competition from other roosters. However, the number of sperm per ejaculate is seldom less than 100 million which is the minimum required to maintain high fertility.
In general, we can opt for a rooster to hen ratio of 1 to 10 or 1 to 12, that is, maintain one rooster for every 10 to 12 hens (in the case of heavy breeds we can go down to 1 male for 5 females). This will most likely result in a hen house that tends to be quiet with no particular cause for wariness.
A good ratio is 10 hens for every 1 rooster. Roosters are very protective of “their” hens, and if there are too many roosters in your flock this can cause fighting over another rooster mounting a hen that is not “his” hen.
If you have a rooster or two in your flock, the first sign I've often noticed is that the rooster is suddenly interested in breeding with the pullets. If you don't have a rooster, you may still notice that your pullets begin to squat when you approach them.
Now you know, fertilized eggs are completely safe to eat—unless you've neglected to care for them or wash the eggs…or you've let your broody hen have her eggs for longer than normal. You can safely eat your fertilized eggs without any worries. It's truly no different than an unfertilized egg.
Many roosters can co-exsist peacefully in one pen as long as there are no hens to fight over. Don't separate the boys from each other or they might forget that they know each other and start fighting when they are re-introduced. That would guarantee you would need to re-home one of them.
On average, roosters can live between 5-8 years. However, in captivity when they are properly cared for, their average lifespan increases to 10-15 years. Unlike hens, roosters are less tame and spend the majority of their life on high alert to defend the other birds.
Therefore it's recommended that if you want to keep chickens as family pets, that you have at least two, rather than having one lone chicken. They really do enjoy the company of their own kind, and need that social interaction in order to keep their spirits up (but they will enjoy your company just as much!)
Aggressive behaviour by males, towards each other and humans, starts at 4-6 months of age when cockerels start to mature and testosterone levels rise. Never encourage fighting by teasing or taunting young poultry.
You need a rooster if you want to naturally hatch baby chicks. The male chicken fertilizes the eggs, which allows them to develop into baby chicks. Roosters will protect the rest of the flock.
Freshly laid eggs can be left out at room temperature for at least a month before your need to start thinking about moving them into the fridge. We like to make sure we eat ours in under two weeks (because they tend to taste better), but so long as the egg is eaten within one month of it being laid, you will be fine.
Eggs usually become fertile about four days after the rooster has been introduced to the hens. A maximum of 14 to 16 eggs may be brooded in one nest, but hatchability often declines with more than ten eggs, depending on the size of the hen.
The average duration of fertility from a single mating is 10 to 14 days. If you want to hatch eggs from a specific hen and a specific rooster, you can be 100% certain of the “right” fertility by first housing the hen away from any roosters. After about 10 days, start checking her eggs for fertility.
Mating can cause bald patches and wounds on the necks and backs of your hens. This may make you consider throwing your rooster in the pot–but don't worry just yet. Although some of the behavior you'll observe from your rooster may seem to be overly aggressive to your hens, most of it is perfectly normal.
Once the cloacas touch, his cloaca will deliver the sperm package to the hen whose cloaca has everted (turned out) to receive the package. All this usually takes less than 30 seconds. He will walk away, maybe crow, she will shake herself and carry on with whatever she was doing at the time – ahh, romance!
They will also do this in preparation to mate. If you watch a rooster preparing to mount a hen, he will first grab her neck feathers to secure her. Particularly during puberty, this instinct can come out in unexpected ways.
Roosters that have been raised together from a young age will also be more likely to co-exist together as adults. Ideally you should have at least 10 hens for each rooster in your flock.
Some of the more active chicken breeds, like the Leghorns, cope perfectly well with a ratio of eight to twelve hens to every rooster, as do some larger chicken breeds such as Orpingtons. Smaller chicken breeds, including bantams, on the other hand, do better with a lower ratio of five to seven hens per rooster.
The age a rooster will first crow varies, but generally speaking, he will begin crowing at about four or five months of age, at about the time he begins to look like a mature rooster. It can certainly vary considerably, though.
If there are more roosters and fewer hens, the roosters will fight each other to gain more hens. Alternatively, if there are too many hens for the resident roosters to cope with, they may become 'hen-pecked'.