Separation of hens from the toms

[fdh54]

When exactly in the laying cycle should I remove my tom from the hens? When she lays the first egg or when?
Also is early Feb too early to expect the hen to start setting and bring off a successful nest in N. Florida. I guess I am wondering when I should stop collecting the eggs for food and leave them in the hens nest? I raised 15 from poults and 7 ended up being toms. Seems like only one is doing the breeding though. The others are just strutting around or fighting working the pecking order out.

 

[Angela CHICKEN]

If you only have one tom with one hen could be bad for hen if tom is over amorous.

I keep my toms with my hens til they start to go broody then remove the tom.

I have not had a heritage breed hen not go broody. When she decides to brood is her choice. She will have a magic number of eggs in the nest and she will start to set. Could be from 1 to 20 eggs. Average about 8 to 10.

I keep my eggs in egg cartons on the counter. Pointy end down. Turn them couple times a day by moving a board from one end of carton to other. I have let mine set for 10 days. But usuall try to set eggs each week.

I'm in Mo. My birds haven't started laying yet. Northern Fla. I would say she should be alright to try and brood.

I raise my 2tom heritage bronze had 2 hens,but had to Dispatch IDDY BIDDY due to severe injuries during matting?? (She wasn't able walk to feed or water except what I hand fed her. This morning my last hen Sweetie M. was limping so I shut her off in my smallest prefab coop, to have time to heal if possible. I have never seen them aggressive towards the guinea, or chickens or each other? Don't know what to do now, if she gets well will the Tom's keep braking them down? All advice welcome and needed.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

One

I raise my 2tom heritage bronze had 2 hens,but had to Dispatch IDDY BIDDY due to severe injuries during matting?? (She wasn't able walk to feed or water except what I hand fed her. This morning my last hen Sweetie M. was limping so I shut her off in my smallest prefab coop, to have time to heal if possible. I have never seen them aggressive towards the guinea, or chickens or each other? Don't know what to do now, if she gets well will the Tom's keep braking them down? All advice welcome and needed.

One tom might not be hard on her. Two toms will be because when one starts to mate the other will often start to fight with him and the hens gets the worse of the deal. It can help sometimes to keep nails and spurs trimmed on the toms, but sometimes they still can tear up the hens.

I'd probably keep the hen separately going forward if you don't plan to add more hens and remove one of the toms.

 

[R2elk]

I raise my 2tom heritage bronze had 2 hens,but had to Dispatch IDDY BIDDY due to severe injuries during matting?? (She wasn't able walk to feed or water except what I hand fed her. This morning my last hen Sweetie M. was limping so I shut her off in my smallest prefab coop, to have time to heal if possible. I have never seen them aggressive towards the guinea, or chickens or each other? Don't know what to do now, if she gets well will the Tom's keep braking them down? All advice welcome and needed.

You only had enough hens for one tom. Keeping multiple toms together with just a couple of hens is a recipe for disaster.

Toms also must not be allowed access to a hen's nest. They will take the sitting hen as an invitation to breed. The hen will resist the breeding attempt. The least that will happen is broken eggs. The worst that will happen is a dead hen.

Get down to one tom and add more hens. I try to keep at least 4 to 5 hens for one tom. It makes life much easier on the hens.

 

[fdh54]

One more thing. I have heard of people taking the eggs from a turkey and putting under a broody hen (chicken) that is good at raising poults and letting her do the nesting. Where do you place the eggs while you are removing them from the turkey pen and at what temp do they need to be stored and for how long a period can you do this? My first year with chickens and turkeys.

 

[feedman77]

If you only have one tom with one hen could be bad for hen if tom is over amorous.

I keep my toms with my hens til they start to go broody then remove the tom.

I have not had a heritage breed hen not go broody. When she decides to brood is her choice. She will have a magic number of eggs in the nest and she will start to set. Could be from 1 to 20 eggs. Average about 8 to 10.

I keep my eggs in egg cartons on the counter. Pointy end down. Turn them couple times a day by moving a board from one end of carton to other. I have let mine set for 10 days. But usuall try to set eggs each week.

I'm in Mo. My birds haven't started laying yet. Northern Fla. I would say she should be alright to try and brood.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

One dominant Tom will breed the hens, the others will try fighting with him during mating and the hens can get tore up, so it's best to remove some or all but one Tom. The Tom can stay with the hens year round. You will want to separate any setting hen to raise her poults in peace.

I personally pull my eggs, than put them under some bantam hens to hatch, if I need to store them I put them fat side up in a carton at an angle and rotate them daily which end is higher.

I let my bantam hatch the eggs and I brood them. I let the chickens raised the poults one year, the poults didn't know they were turkeys and bonded with the chickens, I had a hard time keeping them with the turkeys and it became a mess. Turkeys can kill chickens, so I don't recommend letting the chickens raise them unless you can permanently separate them, or plan to butcher them.

 

[turksinmaine]

sorry to step in to another, sort of, topic with my own but can someone please refresh my memory as to what those things are called that you put on the back of hens to protect them from damage from toms? And any advice of a good site to buy them for a reasonable price?
not looking for fancy or anything, just something that will do the trick.

 

[ChickenGrass]

Hi turksinmaine
They are called chicken saddles
Amazon has them http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...arch-alias=aps&field-keywords=Chicken+saddles
Goodluck

 

[fdh54]

I can't quite picture the board thing?? Are they kept at room temperature? I really appreciate the help. Guess I got to get to building some more pens to separate my toms. My goal was to keep one tom of each breed/color then sell/trade the rest of them off so I can get some more hens. Right now my Royal Palm is doing all the breeding. I have a wild eastern strain tom, almost solid white tom that has a pinch of bourbon red in him I think and one bronze mixed tom. Would like to get a Bourbon red tom and a Blue Slate tom and then see which breed I want to settle down with.