It has to be the ultimate question asked when it comes to raising chickens. No, not which one came first. I’m being serious. The question is, of course, whether or not a keeper should add a rooster to their flock.
This is a surprisingly nuanced topic, and if you ask 10 chicken keepers, you’ll probably get 10 different answers and different reasons as to why or why not. There’s good reason for this, and I’ll level with you: adding a rooster to your flock will be the best thing you ever did—or the beginning of a long and seemingly unending nightmare—and not much in between.
The only way to avoid making a terrible mistake is to understand all the consequences involved in the decision… Keep reading, and I’ll tell you about all of them, from Australorps and Brahmas to Delawares and Langshans.
The Good
Better Meat Yield
One often overlooked advantage of raising a rooster—or multiple roosters—is that you’ll enjoy much better meat yield if you slaughter them. And you can also enjoy more meat more quickly!
That’s because roosters, as a rule, grow both larger and much faster than hens—assuming the two birds are of the same breed, of course. This makes roosters a great choice for preparing a proper roaster or table bird for a special occasion or for padding your freezer with a large quantity of delicious, wholesome chicken.
Another factor to consider: neutering a rooster produces what’s called a capon, and the reduction in overall testosterone is said to yield meat of superb quality. A capon, when you can find it, fetches a significant premium in grocery stores for this reason!
If you want to get the most from the birds you do slaughter, or enjoy some truly succulent meat, you should look into getting a rooster or two.
Improved Flock Security
In the wild, roosters are much like other male birds, regardless of species: they are overwhelmingly concerned with protecting their flocks and mates from danger. That practice continues today with domestic roosters of all kinds.
Roosters can protect the rest of the flock in a couple of ways. First, and most prevalent, is through signaling danger.
Roosters, as a rule, are extremely vigilant, and when they aren’t roaming around looking for food, they often take up residence on a convenient perch or roost to keep an eye on things and watch for the approach of predators, especially flying ones like owls, hawks, eagles and others.
The other way they protect the flock is through direct intervention.
Roosters will, more often than not, willingly throw themselves at predators that they have no chance whatsoever of beating or even surviving. This brave and sacrificial charge can buy hens and chicks time to get to safety.
Not for nothing, smaller predators like snakes, rats, mice, and other creatures can indeed be killed outright by a rooster! Their size, strength, ferocity, sharp spurs, and stouter beaks make them dangerous to these smaller creatures.
Nevertheless, guts only counts for so much: bigger baddies like coyotes, dogs, foxes, wolves, bobcats and so forth tend to make short work of even the bravest rooster. Even so, they can buy time for hens to escape or signal you to ride to the rescue!
Roosters are Beautiful!
For chicken fanciers, it doesn’t get any better than roosters. Yes, hens can be quite attractive, but nothing beats the lustrous colors, immense tail feathers, poise, and proportions of a mature rooster.
They truly are stunningly beautiful animals, despite how common and ubiquitous they are! For bird lovers of all stripes, they are truly a treat to behold.
Watching your rooster strut in the sunshine or majestically stand his post over the run is one of life’s simple pleasures that never gets old.
Fertilized Eggs
Every chicken keeper knows by now—I hope—that hens will always lay eggs once they reach sexual maturity. No rooster needed! But what a few people still don’t know, or overlook, is that those eggs won’t be fertilized without the rooster.
That means if you want eggs to raise yourself in an incubator and brooder, or if you want to expand your flock the old-fashioned way by letting your hens sit and hatch, you’ve got to have at least one rooster around.
This is nature following its course. If you don’t want to resort to purchasing eggs from local hatcheries or getting mail-away fertilized eggs sent to you, a rooster’s a necessity.
Better Flock Integrity
Many flocking birds—and that certainly includes chickens—have surprisingly nuanced, deep social hierarchies. You’ve probably heard this referred to as the pecking order, and it’s not just a quirk of chicken psychology; it is critically important to their overall health and well-being day to day.
Many chicken keepers don’t know—and I sure didn’t for quite a while when I got started—that a flock of hens won’t be perfectly well-adjusted unless they have a rooster. Roosters are naturally supposed to be at the very, very top of the flock hierarchy. All of the hens are subordinate to him.
Yes, there might be an alpha female or two in there, and without a rooster, they will do the best job they can, but hens don’t squash intra-flock problems like roosters do.
Even though roosters have a reputation for being a pain in the butt for us humans, once they establish themselves in the flock, they tend to be a stabilizing influence.
Easier Flock Foraging
Aside from protection and reproduction, another duty roosters have is finding food for the rest of the flock, and especially for his preferred girls. Anytime roosters find a tasty tidbit on the ground, dig up something edible, or just spot a juicy bug, they will do a little dance and call out to draw the rest of the flock to the food.
This might not make a huge difference if you’re keeping them in a tractor or run, but if you allow your birds to free-range, having a rooster around means that the flock will find more food and be happier overall.
It’s a niche benefit, but definitely a benefit!
The Bad
Legality
One of the biggest issues associated with roosters is that of legality—or maybe a better word is permissiveness.
Do a quick search online for laws and codes concerning chicken keeping in your county and the surrounding counties, along with major towns and cities in your state. I’ll bet you any amount of money that 75% of them have a strict “no roosters” policy if you live in a residential zone area or inside city limits.
Roosters have a bad reputation for being really annoying, and plenty of active busybodies who don’t want “farm animals” in their neighborhood will actively campaign against them. This can mean problems for you if you have your heart set on adding one of these boys to your flock.
Pecking Order Squabbles
You know how I said up above that roosters help overall flock integrity? This is true, but it’s only true once the alpha rooster—the big dog—or I guess the Big Bird—establishes himself as the king of his domain. Until that time, you can expect squabbles. Lots and lots of squabbles.
If you have more than one rooster, they will fight ruthlessly to establish supremacy, and sometimes they will fight to the death!
Although rarer, this can even be an issue between a younger rooster and a mature, matronly hen who has settled into her role.
For inexperienced or skittish keepers, this is frustrating, stressful, and even frightening!
Roughed-Up Girls
We already established that you need a rooster if you want to expand the size of your flock naturally. This happens, of course, via mating.
But you might not know just how brutal mating can be between a rooster and his chosen mate! When a rooster mounts a hen, he will dig his spurs into her and grip the back of her neck in his beak. Ripped-out feathers and even the drawing of blood are common.
If a chosen hen suffers the attention of a rooster repeatedly—which is quite common—she can end up with serious, even life-threatening injuries!
This can be managed by equipping your girls with a saddle or ensuring an adequate number of hens so the load gets spread around, but it can be a pain either way.
Stocking Rate Woes
Adding even a single rooster to the flock means things are going to change regarding how you do things. All roosters need a certain number of hens, usually between 6 and 12 for every rooster depending on the breed and the age of the male.
Too few hens, and your girls will get ravaged by repeated mating. Too many, and your rooster might start getting stressed out because he can’t manage and watch out for the flock successfully. Further complications arise when you add more than one rooster, for reasons we’ve discussed.
Building a large flock of just hens is far more straightforward than building a mixed flock…
The Ugly
Aggression
Make no mistake, roosters are aggressive. They are highly motivated and constantly supercharged with testosterone, and this makes them downright surly.
They will charge, peck, kick, and flog you when you come into the run, coop, or other enclosure. They will try to herd hens away from you. They will attack kids, pets, and other animals on the homestead. They will ruthlessly attack other birds. In short, they can be real punks!
This can be partially overcome by choosing a breed that’s known for docility and raising them from chicks, but sometimes a rooster will never settle down no matter what you do.
Gatekeeping of New Additions
Adding a new chicken is always a time of uncertainty, even when the flock is nothing but girls. The anxiety goes up tenfold if you’ve got a rooster in the flock. Sometimes, he just won’t have it…
That means the newcomer could be attacked relentlessly by the rooster, often with injurious or even fatal results. Worse, bullying behavior is a kind of social contagion; hens that see the rooster do it might start doing it themselves!
Again, this can be managed but rarely stopped unless you exile the rooster…
Noise
Far and away the number one negative about getting a rooster.
Roosters are notoriously loud, and that iconic cock-a-doodle-doo you’ll hear day in and day out forever at the crack of dawn will drain your sanity.
It will drain your sanity and also turn your neighbors against you. Let’s face it, roosters are downright annoying, and the noise factor is the chief reason why they are banned from so many municipalities.
Greater Care Requirements
Last but not least, though still worth mentioning. Everything about a rooster is bigger and more prominent, and that includes their combs, wattles, earlobes, and feathers. This will necessitate more care, especially during wet conditions and winter weather.
These larger exposed extremities are far more vulnerable to frostbite, and those gorgeous, impressive feathers can get downright caked with mud and grime.
You might also have to contend with trimming spurs if your rooster is too aggressive or too rough on the girls during mating. Take it from me: restraining one of these birds so you can do that is a real adventure!
Adding a Rooster to Your Flock the Right Way
It’s one of the most nerve-wracking things you can do. Flock dynamics are difficult to predict and when a rooster joins an existing flock, especially an existing flock of mature birds, anything can happen.
Typically, either a young rooster will “try to hard” to wow the ladies and he will harass, chase or attempt to mate with them before the time is right. Sometimes, a mature hen leading the flock, the matriarch if you will, can take issue with the cocky newcomer and attack him! In turn the rooster might attack back and such scuffles can end ugly.
In my experience, and according to my seasoned mentors, this can often be avoided by adding a mature, proper rooster (1 year old or older) to your existing mature flock. These older guys are fully matured, sexually, and don’t suffer from raging hormones. They are also far more confident than young, schizo cockerels. That helps the ladies both follow and admire him.
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Tom has lived and worked on farms and homesteads from the Carolinas to Kentucky and beyond. He is passionate about helping people prepare for tough times by embracing lifestyles of self-sufficiency.