Two of my "hens" are roosters! What to do?

[TrevNorman]

About 3 months ago we purchased 5 chooks (at point of lay) and they are producing eggs (although they have cooled off at the moment). We also purchased 5 chooks of mixed breed (and apparently gender) at 12 weeks of age. All were supposed to be hens. One of them sadly died early on (stupid neighborhood cats) but of the remaining four, two have turned out to be roosters. And they won't leave the girls alone!

I would appreciate your opinions on what to do now. My thoughts are to build a second chook run area and keep some chooks there (so we can eat the eggs) and let the roosters have the other 3 to breed some chooky babies (although I am sure I will get more roosters!)

I would like to have around 20 egg laying birds (and perhaps keep one rooster) eventually.
I am about to build a chook dome so I could have 10-12 chooks as workers (and chook producers) and keep 10 in the run?

What would you do??

[eco4560]

Eat one, keep the other and buy 8 more hens. Then stand back and wait for mother nature to take it's course and build your flock.

[purecajn]

Now don't rush and put stereo types on them. let them make their own choices where sexual identity is concerned. maybe there just hens in drag

[Burra Maluca]

Pretty well everyone I know with chooks is quite happy to eat fertile eggs. You really won't notice any difference, unless you pull one out from under a broody hen that's been sitting on it for several days to start off the incubation process. If I was in your shoes, I'd probably eat one rooster and leave the other one with the girls. Then just eat all the eggs as normal until such time as one them goes broody, then I'd make her a nice little broody-house and give her some of the freshest eggs back to sit on.

[Ludi]

If you have full size (not bantam) chickens, you need to have more than 3 hens per rooster. Closer to a dozen is safer. If there aren't enough hens per rooster the hens can be injured (sometimes fatally) by being mounted too often by the rooster. In my experience, this does not seem to be a problem with bantams though I imagine the hens still get pretty tired of it....

[TrevNorman]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will move one of they boys on (anyone want a free rooster, I can't kill it and eat it myself). Then let the others do their thing until one of them gets broody.

Thank you