Advice please

[mandi plus five]

We have 13 wonderful Orpingtons, now aged 12 weeks, we are sure that so far one is a cockerel,Diggory standing at the front! although the most docile of them all. My question is, will they all live together happily, if I discover more than one is a boy ?

 

[AlexArt]

Yes they should be fine if they grow up together - you usually only get issues if you introduce an adult cockrel into and established flock with an established male, then they'll fight. I have several cockrels in my flock at any one time and as long as they either are raised together or introduced as youngsters when they are no threat and learn their place then so far I've not had too many probs - the odd dust up but that's it, plus orps tend to be rather docile and not very dominant birds and not as inclined to pick fights as some breeds. I was once given a really little banty cockrel by some friends who had too many, he was always trying to fight with anything that moved and he even almost killed my huuuge buff orp cockrel who was about ten times his size! - needless to say he got the chop but some are that way inclined!! :roll:
Your chooks are lovely looking birds!

 

[chrismahon]

I had the same problem as AlexArt with a Bantam cockerel. Attacked the resident Buff Orpington for a second time (the first he was stomped on and left in the dust) and got shredded and then culled.

The Orps that grew up together got rather agressive towards each other after 9 months. The dominant one was repeatedly ambushed by the second placed one in the coop at night and had three points of his comb pecked off.

It's a bit of a lottery Mandi. Depends how many hens there are as well -too few and they will fight. If one is very clearly dominant there may be no problems.

 

[Chuck]

You stand more chance of them getting on if they grow up together but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes they kick off and never settle down again with one another, and at other times they settle and go back to normal. It's better if they've got plenty of space to get away from one another as they can do one another a lot of damage.
You can afford to wait and see how things go.

 

[victorias poultry]

Normally if brought up together you have no problems as a whole, you will get the occasional little playground fight (normally when no 2 cockerel is mating with cockerel no 1 favourite girl). I have a breeding pen of buff orps with 2 cockerels and 7 girls which live in harmony,