A very common question I get about backyard chickens is “Can chickens lay eggs without a rooster?” 

Now, if you’ve asked yourself this question (or a similar question about chickens laying eggs), and you are still confused, or if you’ve asked someone else, and they’ve laughed at you mercilessly, don’t worry.

So, can chickens lay eggs without a rooster? This is a common question, and it tends to confuse new owners.

Particularly since, it seems, everyone hears wonky backyard chickens advice everywhere you turn once you bring a few hens into your backyard.

In fact, I think every old-time farmer who lives around our farm has stopped by and told us a few tall tales or two about chickens they raised in their childhood.

We’ve even gotten a few sprinkles of advice that have made me scratch my head and wonder where the hell they picked up that nugget of “knowledge” from (like these Chicken feeding myths…).

One such bit of advice (and you’d think they would know better since they claimed to have raised “over 1,000 chickens in their day”) is that a hen won’t lay eggs unless a rooster is present. 

And that’s probably why I have so many folks emailing me asking “can chickens lay eggs without a rooster?”

Pretty black and white rooster on wooden fence

Can chickens lay eggs without a rooster?

Never fear –  in short, yes, chickens can lay eggs without a rooster being present.

So, if you’ve been putting off getting a backyard flock because your town doesn’t allow cockerels and you think you need one to get eggs, you can breathe a bit easier.

And feel free to make a cute chicken coop (try one of these free chicken coop plans) for those chickens you want.

Yes, female chickens can lay eggs without a rooster, and they might even lay them a bit easier and more regularly. (So feel free to use all your extra eggs in one of these genius ways). They will just have unfertilized eggs.

You only need a rooster if you want to HATCH chicken eggs. In that case, the rooster is needed to fertilize the hen’s egg, which is equivalent to a human woman’s ovum. If you’re wondering about a chickens reproductive system then here’s an article about how chickens mate.

If you have a rooster to fertilize hen eggs, you’ll need to learn how to hatch chicken eggs, too. You also might want to read about the best incubator!

Now if you’re wondering “can male chickens lay eggs,” the answer is an emphatic NO. They don’t have the right…erm….equipment.

Why a rooster can make egg laying more difficult

So now that you know that chickens are laying eggs without a rooster, let’s look at why it might even be to your benefit to NOT keep a rooster.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We have more than one rooster on our farm, and they’re fabulous.

BUT I’m the first to say that there are times when it’s better to not keep the masculine gender in your flock (or, in the case of husbands, in your home. Just kidding. Not really.)

Roos can be cool guys, but they can also be huge….well, since this is a G rated backyard chickens blog, we’ll just go with “pains in the butt.” More often than not, roosters are the biggest pain when they are establishing their pecking order or when they are mating, which are normal things.

A rooster’s main job is to protect his ladies. And sometimes, he can get a bit too possessive. One thing to consider is the breed of rooster as well. Some breeds are more docile than others.

Two roosters fighting each other

Potential Rooster Issues

Flogging

Well, you’ve probably read stories on Facebook of a rooster flogging his owner. And it’s not fun.

I’ve even read stories of chicken mamas who have to walk into their yards carrying sticks so they have something to distract the rooster with. This doesn’t happen with backyard hens though. Read more here about how to stop rooster attacks.

Now if you want to live your life with a flogging rooster, that’s completely up to you and your personal circumstance. However, if you just don’t want to live that way, know that it’s completely fine to give that rooster a new home.

No one should ever be abused by a rooster in their own backyard.

So why can a rooster start flogging? It’s usually triggered because the roo doesn’t want ANYONE (anyone meaning YOU or another rooster) messing with his harem.

Overmating

A second reason they can be difficult to keep around is that they not only get possessive of their hens, but some roos can excessively mate with their hens, to the point that the ladies are suffering bodily damage. Read more about how chickens mate.

Yes. this is a thing, and it can definitely happen. Time for a story.

A few years ago, we decided to produce pasture-raised meat roosters. We figured they would be a better bet than females because they grow larger.

All went well, until the roos were about 6 months. And the hormones started kicking in.

Then all hell broke loose.

At the time, our hens were also free ranging, and let’s just say it was a bit like a prison riot in the yard for a quick minute. (Wondering how does a chicken mate?) 

In other words, too many roosters per hen can lead to a very bad situation. If you’re wondering about the ideal hen-to-rooster ratio, ONE rooster per TEN hens is a good minimum.

Now, we were able to quickly resolve the issue and the ladies came out perfectly fine, but it took another quick minute for their back feathers to regrow.

While this was a situation of too many males per female, any cockerel that has a harem of hens to oversee can feel he has to mate excessively to establish dominance. And that can lead to lost feathers and eventually lower egg production (here are some more reasons why chickens stop laying eggs).

So, in some ways, your hens might produce eggs BETTER than if there wasn’t a male present.

Now the next time you see someone ask on Facebook “Can chickens lay eggs without a rooster?” you can point them to this article for the definitive answer!

More Backyard Chicken Resources


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Maat van Uitert is a backyard chicken and sustainable living expert. She is also the author of Chickens: Naturally Raising A Sustainable Flock, which was a best seller in it’s Amazon category.  Maat has been featured on NBC, CBS, AOL Finance, Community Chickens, the Huffington Post, Chickens magazine, Backyard Poultry, and Countryside Magazine. She lives on her farm in Southeast Missouri with her husband, two children, and about a million chickens and ducks. You can follow Maat on Facebook here and Instagram here.

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