A chicken will lay eggs with or without a rooster.
Keeping poultry can be a hobby or a full time job depending on how many birds you keep and your ultimate goal. Some people have a few hens and a rooster while commercial growers may keep thousands of either or, depending on if they are a laying house or fryers. One question a number of new chicken growers have is whether you should separate your hens from your roosters, and the answer depends on the circumstance.
Egg Layers
If you are keeping a few hens around the yard to eat bugs and lay a few eggs for your family, and maybe a few to sell you do not have to have a rooster at all. Chickens lay eggs independently of a roosters involvement. It is a misconception that a chicken need to be "bred" to lay eggs. A hen in her prime will lay 150-200 eggs per year, with no rooster in sight.
You can eat fertilized eggs as long as you collect them every one to two days. It takes approximately three days of constant incubation for baby chicks to begin to develop.
Protecting the Flock
Roosters offer protection to your hens. They have been known to lead a flock to safety during bad weather and will attempt to defend your birds from predators. At the very least roosters will often alert you when there is a problem by crowing loudly. In this type of situation you would be well served to keep your rooster with the hens.
Rooster Role
When you keep a group of hens without a rooster about you run the risk of one hen deciding to take on his traditional role. This means that she will likely stop laying eggs and take on a roosters characteristics. In commercial flocks a bird like this would be culled as would the next one down the line. You would want to keep a rooster with your hens to prevent this from occurring.
Demanding Rooster
Another reason many people choose to either keep the rooster separate from the hens or have no rooster at all is the aggressive bird. Some roosters will be more "active" than others, which can result in feather loss on a hen's back or the back of her neck. It is not uncommon for a dominant rooster to choose one docile hen to mate with repeatedly. Aggressive birds or a too low hen-to-rooster ratio can result in this problem. It is suggested that you keep one rooster per 8-12 hens, but this is not a hard and fast rule.
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