Gosh if I had the space I'd take him but I'm still building housing and runs for chickens I have on order for this fall. I promised myself I wouldn't ever do that again (order birds before building the housing) but here I am again working on a tight deadline. This chicken addiction really wears you out.
Yes, that's a rare quality in a rooster. My only rooster is like that too - a real gentleman. He's the fellow I'm going to breed because I definitely want to propagate his disposition. Gosh my guy even lets me pick up the gals for weekly inspection and doesn't seem to mind at all. At first I thought that would surely set him off but I was pleasantly surprised. When my dogs are anywhere in sight or a hawk flies over he instantly goes into defensive mode but for whatever reason he isn't bothered by me. He was raised and shown by a young girl so I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not but I'm sure happy with him the way he is.
Yes, that's a rare quality in a rooster. My only rooster is like that too - a real gentleman. He's the fellow I'm going to breed because I definitely want to propagate his disposition. Gosh my guy even lets me pick up the gals for weekly inspection and doesn't seem to mind at all. At first I thought that would surely set him off but I was pleasantly surprised. When my dogs are anywhere in sight or a hawk flies over he instantly goes into defensive mode but for whatever reason he isn't bothered by me. He was raised and shown by a young girl so I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not but I'm sure happy with him the way he is.
Hey DesertChic, just curious but what kind of setup do you have for breeding? Desert Marci said to have as many pens/breeding pens, etc., as I can reasonably fit because you can never have too many and I tend to agree with that notion. I was able to par my design down a bit to make it a much easier build with as little digging as possible, but I still want to go with 6 sections that'll be a total of 6' wide x 16 ' long; the coop parts will be 6'x6' and the runs will be 6'x10'. I figure that should work well for a rooster and 3-4 hens to breed in a single section, and then I can move the hens back to my big coop/run with the other layers and raise the chicks in the same coop/run section they were conceived in until they're about 6 months old when I can move them in with the other girls or leave them in the same section if the other girls are still productive. I'm planning on keeping no more that 10% of any hatch for future breeding and the remainder will either replace hens that are past peak (> 2 seasons) or will get sold or get 'et. So I'm figuring I'll have enough sections with 6 to get started with the Barred Rocks and Brown Leghorns until I build another 2 section coop/run for broilers and just to have a spare section in case I need it. Do you think that'll work?
Ok, I see. That's a neat setup - lot's of possibilities for how you want to do things. After seeing your setup I'm pretty confident I'll be able to meet my goals with my setup when I finish building it. Like you said, you can always move birds around as needed.Right now I don't have separate breeding pens set up and nearly all of my birds are free-ranging and intermingling. That being said, I have four pens with their own enclosed runs if I choose to close them off, plus four coops that are completely enclosed but can open to the outside to allow the birds to free-range, and one pen that I use as an isolation pen should I need it. The isolation pen is closed off to the outside with the exception of a window for fresh air.
Four of my pens I built into this cabin:
You can see one of my other pens with the enclosed run leading up to the front of the cabin, perpendicular to it.
And these are the pens I built off of one end:
We've added tarp covers to these runs since the photos were taken.
This is one of the other coops within an enclosed run:
We've added cover to half the run since this photo was taken.
It's fairly easy to move birds to various locations to allow for breeding programs.
