Sometimes two roosters can be great together. Sometimes 2 roos work together with different roles in the flock. Other times the boys go seperate ways and the hens form 2 flocks. On occasion a flock master will force extra males to the edges of a flock. When the last possibility happens free...
Male and female ducks can live together. With two males the more space you have the better. It will depend on the personality of the drakes and your set up for how well the flock will get along.
This is instinct to sleep as high up as possible. My daughter takes the birds off the top of the pen every night (not predator proof on top for us.) and I can't climb up like she can. Unfortunately we have birds that have been doing it for years, and moving them doesn't change what they do the...
Unfortunately chickens can be cruel to each other. A hen that is not considered strong by the flock can get picked on. Since your other birds are not picking on her during the day, it is likely squabbles about prime roosting spots (or getting to them). I'm not sure what your space is like, but...
The daylight hours are shorter this time of year. Chickens over a year old often molt and take a break from laying now. It is a combination of their age and season.
I hope your ducks are all doing well. Not all of your ducks are the same subspecies. Muscovies do not speak the same language as your other ducks. Most domestic ducks were derived from mallards, but Muscovies were not. When I had Muscovies they were more likely to hang out with the chickens...
How is your hatch going? You mentioned paper towels in the incubator. This can raise the humidity by creating more surface area of water. Are the towels for the chicks to walk on? Shelf liner might work better.
Shrink wrapped chicks are due to a lack of humidity. Chicks can drown from...
Once a chick has pipped into the air cell you should see movement when candleing if it is alive. If nothing else you will see movement as it breaths. Unfortunately a chick that was peeping 4 days ago should have hatched by now. If you want to make sure, make a pin hole at the top of the air...
What is the size of the space and what is in the space? Have any of the ducks been separated recently?
This is an odd time of year for ducks to fight, but it likely has something to do with the current bonds and realigning them. Ducks are odd in that their favorite companions can change with...
Sorry, but unless a hen has a well established history of broodiness you will not be choosing which hen will brood chicks. First a hen needs to go broody. A broody hen will stay on a nest day and night with only one or two short (less than an hour) breaks a day. Then her owner chooses
a...
You can not expect a hen to accept other chicks after her own chicks are a couple weeks old. If she did the unexpected and accepted them, the younger chicks would still be left behind when Mom and the older chicks headed off to forage. The younger chicks would need to take warm up breaks that...
If it is bleeding wait more. If it opens and closes its mouth like swallowing wait more. If it is making progress on its own wait more. If none of these things are true slowly help it like it would zip making sure the inner membrane is not stuck on the chick.
Did the shell come off because of chick movement? The outer membrane looks dry, but what is the inner membrane doing? A shrink wrapped chick gets the inner membrane stuck tight to its body. I find using food grade oil works to loosen a spot if needed.
How long ago did the chick externally pip?
You can breed and sell what ever you want, but if using the Marans and Brahma you would need to call them crosses. If you use different colored Brahmas they are still Brahmas, just different color variations. Others will know better about if certain color crosses always result in a another color.
How pure the breeding stock is, is how likely the eggs are to be olive. Blue egg layer can carry 1 or 2 blue egg laying genes. There is no way to tell looking at a bird if it is carrying both blue egg genes. A pure CCL should carry two blue genes, but if it has anything mixed in the ancestry...