Why are there more chickens than roosters on farms?

Question

I am puzzled! When I visit farms, there are usually about 30 chickens and only 2 roosters! Why is this?

Answer 1

b/c chicken lay eggs, and roosters don't, and it only takes 2 roosters to make sure 30 chicken continue laying eggs.

Answer 2

Farms attempt to be as self-sufficient as possible; everything has a purpose and very little waste is created. The purpose of roosters is to fertilize hens, so that the hens produce eggs. The eggs can be cooked, sold, or hatched. Hatched eggs can be sold or raised to adulthood. That's a lot of uses for the eggs. The hens can be used to lay eggs, cooked, or sold. But without hens, there will no eggs. With a small number of hens, there will only be a few eggs. So it makes sense to have many hens on a farm. The rooster can fertilize the hens or be cooked. One rooster can fertilize many hens, so egg production is not harmed by having only a few roosters. Plus, for each rooster you keep on the farm, that is one more animal you must feed, which ultimately decreases the self-sufficiency of the farm.

Answer 3

Because you only need one rooster for quite a few hens, thats the normal way these birds live.. one male with a huge harem of females, its best to keep as few roosters as possible otherwise you just get lots of fights between roosters, which will kill each other. Not only that but roosters are aggressive to the hens and people, they dont lay eggs, they dont have alot of meat for eating, and they often tear up the back of the hens during mating etc.. Basically the more roosters you have, the more chickens get killed or injured in fights, and the more hassle it is to care for your chickens. In short roosters are violent aggressive birds with little to no meat value and no egg production.. the less of them you have in your coop the better.

Answer 4

Because it's the chickens that lay the eggs. If the farmer doesn't want to hatch any eggs for new chickens, he doesn't need roosters at all. Roosters are only necessary to fertilize the eggs so that they can be hatched into live birds. The eggs we eat usually have not been fertilized, and could never grow into chickens.

Answer 5

rooster don't lay eggs and one rooster can take care of 30 hens and the second rooster is there in case the other rooster dies and some people like to here roosters crow

Answer 6

Because that's all it takes. Similar to other animals (lions, deer, etc) where there is one male that leads the herd/pack/group. One rooster will take care of the um... "needs" of multiple chickens (wish you were a rooster huh? lol). Plus, if there are too many roosters, they will fight for mating rights.

Answer 7

One rooster can inseminate many hens. Take a given population of 100 of 99 men, and one woman. Assuming 100% conception with every incident of coitus, it will take ten years to raise the population to ten percent, and 12 to 14 years to raise the childbearing population by 1%, given that the first child born is a female. The population is doomed.
Now, take the reverse starting population, assume that all the factors are the same, and , well you do the math. Males are expendable after reproduction, but females are essential to the survival of a species.

Answer 8

Roosters are chickens. I think you mean to say there are more hens than roosters.

Answer 9

Cause if the farmer had more roosters then chickens, it would just be unpractical. Chickens are the women, roosters are the guys...get it?

Answer 10

They don't even need 2 roosters unless one is getting old.