Ack, how to pick which roos go? And a breed ID, please :)

[zavierchick]

I know I'm not the first to ask, but how on earth do we pick which roos to go? We have fourteen bantams, four turned out to be of the male persuasion and they are starting to get in each other's faces a bit too much, not to mention the 45 minute crowing session every day at 5 am between them all outdoing each other

I was hoping by now to have some clear ideas on who was going to be a pain in the butt or too mean and we could narrow down, but (luckily? unfortunately?) they aren't making it that easy on us!

The candidates:

This is Jack, black mottled cochin bantam - he has an unusually waddley feather foot walk, was the last to crow, is still pretty quiet and pals around with two of the hens - my son's favorite because he is very sweet to him.

Dude, mille fleur cochin bantam, I thought he might be our get rid of boy because he was being horridly pushy with his affections at first, but after a few big shamings by us he has settled down nicely. He's the most aggressive with the other chicks, runs off the other boys quite a bit, but lets my 5 and 7 year old carry him around with no problem at all and is all around sweet to us.

Little White Roo - my favorite looks wise, and if anyone knows what kind he is I would love to know that

He is a sweetie to us as well, lets the kids pick him up if necessary (not as nicely as Dude, but still sweet) and is the quietest. Leads the girls around a bit and hasn't made any moves towards any of them yet.

Coppertop, OEG bantam, the loudest of the boys, and the littlest

He is the most skittish towards us, but perfectly sweet with the other girls and hasn't gotten into it with the other boys either.

I suppose one of the questions might be, is 4 roos for 10 girls (and maybe 7 more coming, waiting to hear on that) too many? Will they settle down and get their own little pecking order or will there always be this crowing competition and chest butting? Will they share the hens nicely when everyone is a little older? (they are all between 4-7 months right now)

Thanks so much for all your wisdom - this site has been such a blessing to us, I would have already lost my mind a few times along the way without all the wealth of info here!!

 

[LarryPQ]

Are you wanting to breed them for showing/$?

If not, then just go with your gut.

Keep the nicest ones. You say #1 & #2 like your kids? There's your keepers. Plus none of my MFCs crow. NOT ONE.

 

[zavierchick]

Quote:
Nope, no breeding on our end, at least not anytime in the near future. My DD would like to show someday, she met an older girl that does and is infatuated, but at that point we will probably look for some pure bred chicks to start with and do it right from the beginning, these guys are more along the backyard mutt lines

Oh, boy, do I wish I could say that for him, he crows a pile and is LOUD and of course, shrill like banties are, it is a darn good thing that our neighbors are pretty mellow because I swear between him and Coppertop they can surely be heard for miles around LOL!

 

[robk0220]

Be glad you only had 4 to choose from. We have 10 buff orp roos and 10 salmon fav roos and we had to pick 3 of each to keep. We finally decided today, and segregated the flock. now we have the roos we are keeping in the 10 x 12 coop with the girls, and the newly decided arctic residents in temporary housing in the pen with the ducks and geese.... so we are down to a managable 26 chickens in the coop instead of 41. Now the wife wants to get some welsummers... sheesh!

 

[sonjab314]

If you ditch #2 I want him. He sure is purdy

lol

 

[chickfan]

We have one pretty little bantam that will go and hide somewhere and start laying eggs, and then gets broody once she has 12 or so. Once I took her and the eggs and put her in a cage in the house. My chickens free range during the day and all get penned at night, and I can't leave her out to sit on eggs and risk having a predator get her at night. When I moved her into the house, she was not happy and would not sit on the eggs all night. Finally she did get back to them, but we had no babies.
Another time she was on top of a metal storage cabinet, with nothing around her to prevent eggs from rolling off, and even worse, nothing to hold babies if some should hatch. I devised a box and put her eggs in there, and she would not go back and sit on them.
I decided I'd just scramble those eggs for the other chickens, and the first 6 I cracked were fertile. This about did me in! There were 12 eggs that time.
So now....once again, she has found a place up high, and is sitting on quite a few...I saw 8 that had come out from under her, so no telling how many total she has. She pretty much keeps them under her, but she is sitting on a bare (although corregated, which helps) tin roof, so they roll every time she moves.
I guess I am only needing to talk about this, because I'm sure most of you have the same sentimental feelings about these sweet chickens trying to protect their eggs. First problem is that we have twice as many chickens as we have room for now (how did that happen? LOL), but I so much want to see what babies hatch from her eggs. We have a mixture of chickens, so I have no idea who the father is of all these eggs, but I don't think we have ever hatched one that she has laid, no matter who the daddy is.
I get sad thinking that if I move her and the babies into the house, she likely will not sit on these either. I hate to take them from her and just throw them away, because I'm betting they are probably all fertile. I'm ashamed to admit that we have 30 chickens (plus 4 more babies) and 9 of these are roosters! A problem yet to be solved. (not to mention the 3 ducks and 4 guineas we have). I just need to talk myself into doing something with her and the eggs. They are way up high, but still available for climbing pretadors, so I can't just leave her there.
So....what would you do? And what do those of you that keep hatching babies, do with all the chickens? We just gave 5 babies away last night, but we've never done that before. Our feed store lady has gotten rid of 2 or 3 roosters for us (gave them to friends, for pets..not for fried chicken) but no one wants roosters right now.
I can't believe we didn't plan ahead better than this! And I did not know I would absolutely fall in love with each and every chicken.
Could someone knock some sense into my head, so I will get out of being so sentimental about all this. Maybe I'm broody myself? LOL
Thanks.

 

[Qi Chicken]

keep dude!

 

[Germaine_11.20]

My thoughts exactly. Dude is gorgeous.

 

[chickfan]

Oops.....I just saw that I had posted my previous message in the middle of the discussion about roos.....I had intended to start another threaed and clicked (pecked?) the wrong thing. I am sooooooooo sorry! Everyone please forgive me and ignore my rambling on another subject. I'll be more careful next time!

 

[Whitney13]

Keep Dude and Jack since they like your kids and your kids like them.