A cockerel will start to "practice" mate at about 8 months old with most breeds. They are not real good at it for the first month or so as it take finnese and balance. The male must stand on the hens back or saddle area before mating and most young males cannot master that right off.
I do not eat hens or roosters.
A term rooster is used for the male bird (the hen is a female bird) of certain species . There are chicken roosters and hens, pheasant roosters and hens, turkey roosters and hens etc. Ducks are drakes and hens. Geese are the "Goose and the Gander".
Well, hens are girls and roosters are boys...that cover it?
no that wont work. the roosters will end up fighting. you need one rooster and how ever many hens you want. and yes you can eat the eggs. To add: the optimum number of hens per rooster of medium-sized birds is 12. Maximum, 20.
Roosters are not the only ones that do this, in fact it is the hen that will most likely start to eat another dead chicken.
if the majority is on the roosters,the rooster will fertilize the hen. and in some conditions, the rooster will peck the hens feathers of. the roosters wood constantly be guarding it from coyotes, minks, (ect..)the hens wood constantly try to get away. if the number of hens is less than five or in that area,the hen wood have a hard time laying eggs. more eggs will be layed if influenced by other hens. its tradition to put wooden eggs in the nesting boxes to influence them. on the other hand, if theres more hens then roosters, they will spend time with each one, and fertilizing the hens. its best to have only two roosters, along with two emergency roosters.
Hens
It is likely that the roosters are aggressive, too rough with the hens, or that there are not hens in ratio to the amount of roosters.
The amount of roosters needed for breeding hens is about one rooster per ten hens
Hens.
Yes they will.
No.