Re: Breeding

Thanks!

Now, if I do that, then add the hens to my existing flock, how do I know
that I won't take them back to their father? If you have 50-60 birds, it
will eventually get hard to tell who was the father to whom. Do you tag them
or something?

---Mike


" Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Giganews" <1611kjb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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OK, I'm not really what you would call a breeder. For the last six years
I've had from 20 to 60 chickens around the farm. We eat and sell the
eggs, predators take a chicken or two every now and again, death by
natural causes, etc. So every two years we buy another 25 day-old chicks
and replenish the stock. This year the wife decides she wants to hatch
our own. So we're in the process of doing that and the first chick
hatched this morning.

Here's my question, we have three roosters in the coop. I have no way of
knowing who is father of what. We just collected up 20 eggs one day and
started incubating them. Seventeen of them were fertilized. I don't know
who is the mother or who is the father. In a few weeks we will be
introducing them to the flock. Is there a "plan" that breeders use to
segregate the males and females so you know who is father of what so
there is not too much interbreeding? I figure even if I put them in a
separate pen, they'd mix sooner or later unless I had separate coops for
every season.

If you have limited pens what can be done is to create cockerels pens.
Make individual pens for the boys which lots of things for them to do -
next door to each other so they can see each other. Moveable pens are also
great so they are on fresh grazing
Then you put a different cockerel in with the girls when you want to breed
from him
If another cockerel has been with them you need to wait two weeks before
the eggs you get will fertilized by the new cockerel



Is interbreeding as much of a problem for chickens as it is for mammals?

No
Its how we have the range we have of breeds and colours
Many have started [and maintained] by half a dozen birds.



What do you folks do?

Have lots of big separate pens :~)
And a cockerel flock
And a pullet flock
and too much work !!!!

Any good web pages or books on the subject?

you could try the COOP - I have not had time recently but it was always a
good source of expert advise as opposed to amateur opinions


--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk




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