Just started a flock 8 weeks ago by ordering
10 gold laced wyandotte - sexed
5 gold laced wyandotte - straight run
10 barred rock - sexed
5 araucana - straight run. Of the 30 I have so far been successful in bringing 29 of them along this far.
My questions are, basically I believe I have 3 gold-laced roosters and 1 araucana rooster. Is this too many for the flock and should I look at culling? Cross-breeding is not an issue as the flock is for laying purposes. Multi-breeds were too keep the family happy, as everybody wanted something. By, the way I thing the Araucana is an Ameraucana as they have pretty prominent tails.

Three roosters would be enough, and 4 or 5 would not be too many as long as you give the males enough space so that they can avoid each other.

what you will find is that if you raise the males together from chicks you can usually keep them together as adults without a problem. I often keep up to 20 males in a 5 ft X 12 ft pen. These would be small Leghorn type males.

The problem is that if you have to remove one male from the group because he is sick or injured, you often can't put him back because the other males that were his buddies treat him like a stranger and will often beat him to death.

Too many males will be hard on your females. If you start noticing that some of your hens are getting the back of their heads beat up, this is often a sign that you have too many males.

Thanks for the information.

I just want to point out that if you bought "Araucana"
from a hatchery.... they probably are NOT true
Araucana.

If this is important to you, please investigate this
further ... I'll bet my money that you don't have true
Araucana.

I didn't mean to be offensive by my earlier post....
This is a common mistake people make ..
because many hatcheries are still advertising
mutts as "araucana" . Now, the mutts can be lovely
birds ... but, they're NOT Araucana....

No offense intended

I agree with Anonymous. What with all the hybrids running around and people breeding tons of different breeds together to find the "perfect" chicken, its hard to find a real, "pure" breed anymore. For this reason, I believe, the ALBC was formed, right? Many heritage, old-fashioned dual-purpose breeds are becoming endangered due to such breeding...

Ok, what does ALBC stand for?

ALBC is the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. They deal with all kinds of rare livestock, including poultry, cattle, sheep, goats, etc. There's another oganization that deals just with poultry called the SPPA (Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities). You can get the addresses of both of these from a Google search, or by checking either the Coop's main links directory or Barry Koffler's Feathersite. (The direct link to the rare poultry preservation society page at Feathersite is HERE, with those two groups and a lot more.

If you have an interest in rare breeds, endangered or vanishing breeds, or old time breeds, and want to learn more about what's available, make contacts with breeders, and learn breeding techniques from a bunch of friendly, helpful experts, you might also want to check out the rare breeders email lists.

The Rare Poultry Breeders International List has close to 900 members now in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe and the U.K, Asia, and Africa. There's most of the top breeders and a lot of poultry science professionals on the list, but they're very open and helpful to beginners as well. A lot of good discussions on different rare chicken breeds, genetics information, health care, housing, plus eggs, chicks and birds for sale or trade. Very helpful list. You can subscribe by sending a blank email to this address: Click Here to subscribe to Rare Poultry Breeders

The Rare Waterfowl Breeders International List has about 300 members, also all over the world, and is run by the same guy who runs the Poultry list. Same setup, but for ducks, geese, swans, etc. You can subscribe by sending a blank email to this address: Click Here to subscribe to Rare Waterfowl Breeders

The Rare Ornamental Fowl Breeders International List is the newest one, and already has about 200 members. It's for discussions about pheasants, guinea fowl, peafowl, quail, grouse, and other gamebirds and exotic fowl. You can subscribe by sending a blank email to this address: Click Here to subscribe to Rare Ornamental Fowl Breeders

A lot of the people on these lists are members of ALBC, SPPA, and other preservation societies. It's also a great way to make contacts if you are interested in finding and breeding some of the rarer birds or heritage breeds.

Thanks so much for the info! I'm into sultans (I have a trio) so I will check these out.

A lot of good info presented here....(VBG!!) Anon, I do believe the Araucana's are not as represented, but to me thats no big deal. They're pretty birds and colorful. The only fault I have with them is the number of deformities. Of five chicks, 1 had a severely crossed beak, as in X, and another has crooked toes. The deformed beak died early on, but the other (toes) does not appear to be hindered by her feet. They are still roosting on the floor at night, and I wonder if this condition will prohibit her from roosting on a pole. The remaining three are the picture of health. Not to worry, no offense was taken by your first post. I appreciate all the information I can get, one can never learn too much.