2 Barnevelders. Genders???

[Josie360]

Hmm. I guess that answers my question as well. I have 2 roos and 2 hens of the same age as yours. I always have extra roos

 

[deekay04]

Thank you so much for everyones time. Im going back to the breeder on Saturday for a couple pullets. I will be keeping both males though. Hopefully all of my roos get along once their older. Does anyone have any thoughts on having 2 barnevelder roos, a black copper maran roo and a blue lace red wyandotte roo all together with about 20 hens?

 

[countrychix]

I have a few more hens than you do and 4 roos is just too many for the poor hens. That said, through the winter I only had 1 roo in with the hens and he managed to strip most of their back feathers off all by himself

 

[Randdee]

Yeah, they are both cockerels. I just got 12 barnevelder eggs and hatched them. 7 hatched and 5 turned out to be cockerels.

 

[stormylady]

I think you'll need more hens or less roos, I had to many roos once and it was a big disaster! I think it should be 1 roo to 10 is what is recommended, I have 2 Roos in with 34 hens and lots and lots of fertile eggs. So even 2 Roos can handle 10+ hens each depending on the Roosters of course.

BTW my roosters were all raised together and got along pretty good. not alot of fighting but alot of competition crowing, and the girls paid the price with being torn up and featherless for a while til I thinned them out some. Sandy

 

[deekay04]

It didn't even cross my mind about the damage they can do to females. Thanks for the info!

 

[daharja]

Just a newbie here (*waves*) coming in late on the conversation.

I've got 1 barnevelder roo in with 12 hens, and when we hatched out our eggs, we ended up with 75% hatching. So if you have a good roo in there, clearly one roo for 12 works beautifully. None of our hens had any sore backs or problems with being torn up, and the whole group seemed happy.

That said, the hens are getting a bit old now, so we're turning the flock over and selling the elderly hens off in groups of four. Chooks are somuch in demand around here that you can get a good price for chooks that are even 3-4 years old and not laying regularly any more (I keep mine for eggs rather than showing, so regular laying is important to me). This is a crazy world - 30 years ago, everyone got rid of their chooks, and now everyone is desperate to get them back!

Cheers,

Leanne in New Zealand.

 

[BlueCamas]

Most definitely cockerels!