Too many Roos...Which would you keep?

[TheQuinns]

Reason for the Maran are clear since i can get pure chicks for sale and keep. I will cull and eat the roos and older hens. I was thinking to keep the brahma so those mixes would be bigger birds for eggs and the table. Reason for EE would be well I think you helped answer my question

 

[3KillerBs]

What are your goals? What do you want to achieve with that mating? Are you going to eat the offspring, sell them, keep the girls for eggs? Only for pets? Does appearance matter? Size? What I'd do doesn't matter. My goals are different from yours and for your flock your goals and your desires are what matters. Not anybody else's.

This.

Choose the rooster that best fits your goals -- and if that's none of them then don't keep any.

 

[Fwoof]

This.

Choose the rooster that best fits your goals -- and if that's none of them then don't keep any.

I agree with @3KillerBs.
Whatever best fits your goals!

 

[TheQuinns]

What are your goals? What do you want to achieve with that mating? Are you going to eat the offspring, sell them, keep the girls for eggs? Only for pets? Does appearance matter? Size? What I'd do doesn't matter. My goals are different from yours and for your flock your goals and your desires are what matters. Not anybody else's.

My goals are mainly for meat. I would not keep the Polish, he's probably a bantam. I don't keep decorative chickens anyway but his offspring would be too small. I have no idea what an EE looks like. EE's are not a breed so they could be anything. Any color and any size. May or may not have the blue shell gene. The Brahma would be too slow to maturity for me. The Marans probably would not be bad and should be able to keep all eggs fertile. But those are for my goals and personal preferences. I have no idea what yours are.

Eggs, Meat, Pets in that order. I want to continue raising birds for eggs and meat without having to purchase anymore pullets. The prices I'm seeing for pullets is getting crazy in my neck of the woods. I'm leaning toward the Brahma since he is so gentle as being my #2 roo. Its just his size makes it seem like he may hurt one of my hens when he mounts. Most of my purpose breed crosses will come from the BCM roo.

 

[TheQuinns]

P.S. The brahma's crow is an awesome rich deep tone.

 

[grizleyguy]

I'd go for brahma for it's large size and being an overall healthy and hardy breed. Broody genes is a plus. Just my 2 cents

 

[ColtHandorf]

Both males throwing feather-legged offspring may make it difficult to identify pure chicks the more generations you have.

 

[NatJ]

I was thinking to keep the brahma so those mixes would be bigger birds for eggs and the table.

For meat, Brahma is usually a poor choice. Yes, they get big, but they grow slowly. First they grow a large bony carcass, then they finally start to put more meat on it. But by that time the meat is tough because of how old the bird is.

Of course all chickens are edible, and a tough chicken can be delicious in certain recipes (chicken & dumplings, coq au vin, and other slow-cooked moist dishes.) But if you want fried chicken (tender enough to fry, large enough to be worth frying) I would not choose the Brahma (slow-growing) or the Polish (small). The Easter Egger might or might not be a good choice.

I also have a personal bias against crested heads (they can make it hard for the chicken to see) and feathered feet (they get muddy). So that's another reason I would be avoiding the Brahma and Polish, and seriously considering the Easter Egger (might not keep him either, depending on what I see of physical traits and temperament.) But that's me, not you.

If you want to sell interesting chicks, you might find more market for chicks that lay colored eggs, or that have cute fuzzy feet, or that have crested heads. If you want to know whether the EE rooster has the genes to produce blue eggs, there is a DNA test available. But if you decide against him for other reasons, there would be no point in paying for the test.

It should be possible to produce some sexlink chicks with certain sets of hens and roosters (example: Blue Copper Marans rooster or Buff Brahma rooster with Barred Rock hens should be sexable at hatch, because daughters will be black while sons have a yellow dot on their heads.) Selling sexed chicks might be good (happy customers, and they pay more for pullets) or bad (you may be unable to sell the males.) Depending on their colors, the Polish rooster and the EE rooster might also be able to sire sexlinks. Depending on colors, the Wyandottes and some of the EE hens might be able to produce sexlink chicks with certain roosters. The Blue Plymouth Tint hens and the Speckled Sussex hens are not going to produce sexlink chicks for you, no matter what rooster you choose.

 

[3KillerBs]

Eggs, Meat, Pets in that order. I want to continue raising birds for eggs and meat without having to purchase anymore pullets. The prices I'm seeing for pullets is getting crazy in my neck of the woods. I'm leaning toward the Brahma since he is so gentle as being my #2 roo. Its just his size makes it seem like he may hurt one of my hens when he mounts. Most of my purpose breed crosses will come from the BCM roo.

Brahmas are not notoriously good layers so, since the rooster is half the flock, you might not want to have that as part of your future layers' makeup.

Are you going to run them together or separate the birds into two flocks?

One thing you might want to do is to raise a hatch of Marans and keep one of the Marans rooster's sons as his second-in-command instead of one of your current roosters.

P.S. The brahma's crow is an awesome rich deep tone.

Brahma roosters have the BEST crows. Every other rooster I've heard sounds tinny by comparison.

 

[ColtHandorf]

One thing you might want to do is to raise a hatch of Marans and keep one of the Marans rooster's sons as his second-in-command instead of one of your current roosters.

That is probably the best idea I've seen in the whole thread.