Asking for Breeding Advice!

[CassieReeves]

Hey there! I'm asking for your guidance and advice. We have 20 chickens, 6 are roosters. Not to worry, hens and roosters live in separate coops. Welp, we're looking to mate the chickens of the same breeds and sell the current roosters after. Then incubate the eggs, sell chicks... keep some maybe, idk yet. My husband has a favorite rooster, he's the Mosaic.i think my favorite is the black Ameracauna. None are mixed breeds. So, we'll get them all through shifts of mating and eventually, whichever rooster we keep could be the rooster of them all.... do rooster stuff and we can have barnyard mixes, maybe Easter Eggers, I'm not sure. I just can't figure which rooster will be best for giving chicks that folks would really like to buy.

Here's what we have...

Roosters (1 of each) - Mosaic, Welsummer, Blue Ameracauna, Black Ameracauna, Golden Cuckoo Marans, Swedish Flower.

Hens - Mosaic (1), Welsummer (2), Blue Ameracauna (1), Black Ameracauna (1), Golden Cuckoo Marans (2), Swedish Flower (2), Rhode Island Red (4), Dominikers (2), Black Star (1), Silver Laced Wyandotte (1), Buff Orpington (1), Easter Egger (1), Cuckoo Marans (1).

If you had to choose 1 rooster to make chicks that will sell easily, which would you pick? If I'm taking the wrong approach or not thinking of something I should be, please tell me. This is stressing me out. We'd also consider keeping 2 roosters and splitting the hens. We have 2 big coops. I just can't decide the best route. All of the girls that are currently laying are in the main coop. I'm thinking the easiest way to get this done would be to throw one of the roosters (which do y'all think?) in with those girls.

Sorry so long! Thanks for reading!

Pic for attention, she's one of our Golden Cuckoo Marans.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Black or Blue Ameraucana roo over..

Ameraucana hens.. pure bred BBS offspring.
Welsiummer hen.. OE offspring
Dominique, GCM, and CM hens.. will give sex linked offspring.. males having white spots on their head at hatch and females being solid.

All other.. like the SFH GLW, EE etc.. MIGHT be considered EE offspring.

To be clear.. I never go down to just one roo.. as accidents are bounds to happen.. predation, health, or other. I have often kept more than one roo together with a flock of hens without competitive mating issues or other major blow outs.. The individual personalities matter big time.

In order to keep peace on the stag side of things and not lock myself into a single mating.. I remove the rooster I'm planning to breed and add to the hens side during the night.. let him spend the day with the ladies.. then return to the stag pen after dark.. usually enough time has not passed for the other stags to notice the missing flock mate and set an entire new pecking order.. Off and on until my fertility reaches desired levels.. some win the ladies over quickly while other have to work at it a bit more. Also.. by keeping different colored layers and a stag pen.. I could put the rooster with the whole lot and set only eggs of the desired colored.. leaving 4 weeks between mating to clear any crossing

So that was all just basic info, to the best of my recollection and hatching experience.. which rooster would actually be the very best to keep long term may still be yet to play out.. Also it doesn't really take into account the Mosaic being hubby's fave.. but if you keep a stag pen.. then it allows room for pet fella's as well.. Usually by adding in groups of young "grow outs" before they reach maturity (5-8 weeks if your set up allows).. they can avoid being bullied too much and live happily until harvest.

Hope this give you some ideas and also that others will come along with more great adventures to suggest!

Fun options!

ETA: Actually if the Mosaic is dark skinned.. will throw sex linked offspring when bred to light skinned hens, IIRC.. verification required. Might not since they're a hybrid.

 

[CassieReeves]

Black or Blue Ameraucana roo over..

Ameraucana hens.. pure bred BBS offspring.
Welsiummer hen.. OE offspring
Dominique, GCM, and CM hens.. will give sex linked offspring.. males having white spots on their head at hatch and females being solid.

All other.. like the SFH GLW, EE etc.. MIGHT be considered EE offspring.

To be clear.. I never go down to just one roo.. as accidents are bounds to happen.. predation, health, or other. I have often kept more than one roo together with a flock of hens without competitive mating issues or other major blow outs.. The individual personalities matter big time.

In order to keep peace on the stag side of things and not lock myself into a single mating.. I remove the rooster I'm planning to breed and add to the hens side during the night.. let him spend the day with the ladies.. then return to the stag pen after dark.. usually enough time has not passed for the other stags to notice the missing flock mate and set an entire new pecking order.. Off and on until my fertility reaches desired levels.. some win the ladies over quickly while other have to work at it a bit more. Also.. by keeping different colored layers and a stag pen.. I could put the rooster with the whole lot and set only eggs of the desired colored.. leaving 4 weeks between mating to clear any crossing

So that was all just basic info, to the best of my recollection and hatching experience.. which rooster would actually be the very best to keep long term may still be yet to play out.. Also it doesn't really take into account the Mosaic being hubby's fave.. but if you keep a stag pen.. then it allows room for pet fella's as well.. Usually by adding in groups of young "grow outs" before they reach maturity (5-8 weeks if your set up allows).. they can avoid being bullied too much and live happily until harvest.

Hope this give you some ideas and also that others will come along with more great adventures to suggest!

Fun options!

ETA: Actually if the Mosaic is dark skinned.. will through sex linked offspring when bred to light skinned hens, IIRC.. verification required. Might not since they're a hybrid.

Omg!!! Thank you for this very helpful information and explaining what the crosses give! It seems so overwhelming right now. I'm hoping one I get going, I'll wonder why I didn't see it more clearly. Thanks again, I'll keep referring to your comment to help with who goes where.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Black or Blue Ameraucana roo over..

Ameraucana hens.. pure bred BBS offspring.
Welsiummer hen.. OE offspring
Dominique, GCM, and CM hens.. will give sex linked offspring.. males having white spots on their head at hatch and females being solid.

All other.. like the SFH GLW, EE etc.. MIGHT be considered EE offspring.

To be clear.. I never go down to just one roo.. as accidents are bounds to happen.. predation, health, or other. I have often kept more than one roo together with a flock of hens without competitive mating issues or other major blow outs.. The individual personalities matter big time.

In order to keep peace on the stag side of things and not lock myself into a single mating.. I remove the rooster I'm planning to breed and add to the hens side during the night.. let him spend the day with the ladies.. then return to the stag pen after dark.. usually enough time has not passed for the other stags to notice the missing flock mate and set an entire new pecking order.. Off and on until my fertility reaches desired levels.. some win the ladies over quickly while other have to work at it a bit more. Also.. by keeping different colored layers and a stag pen.. I could put the rooster with the whole lot and set only eggs of the desired colored.. leaving 4 weeks between mating to clear any crossing

So that was all just basic info, to the best of my recollection and hatching experience.. which rooster would actually be the very best to keep long term may still be yet to play out.. Also it doesn't really take into account the Mosaic being hubby's fave.. but if you keep a stag pen.. then it allows room for pet fella's as well.. Usually by adding in groups of young "grow outs" before they reach maturity (5-8 weeks if your set up allows).. they can avoid being bullied too much and live happily until harvest.

Hope this give you some ideas and also that others will come along with more great adventures to suggest!

Fun options!

ETA: Actually if the Mosaic is dark skinned.. will through sex linked offspring when bred to light skinned hens, IIRC.. verification required. Might not since they're a hybrid.

My mosaics work for sexlinking

 

[JacinLarkwell]

You can always keep the Ameraucana you like and the Mosaic your husband likes. Put the Mosaic hens and light skinned hens with the Mosaic, and the Ameraucana hens and dark skinned hens with the Ameraucana.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

As far as pure breds go, Welsummers should be a big seller. He can make speckled olive eggers with any of the Ameraucanas.

SFH would be an amazing niche, but you might need to see how the demand actually is in your area.

Of course the BBS Americauna route gives you pure bred that way, which I think should be desirable, and olive eggers over the Welsummers or Marans, and green eggers over the Wyandottes, RIRs etc any brown laying hens.

The Dominiker hens could give you sexable green eggers by the Black Ameraucana, so that might be a good one to sell, too. And then the Black Ameraucana over your cuckoo or GCM girls give sexable olive eggers.

Honestly it would be hard for me to get rid of any of them lol the GCM and CMarans can give you purebred Marans, which are also desirable right now.

The only one I don't know anything about is the Mosaic. Lol Sorry hubs. Haha but I agree at that point I would just be letting them all hang in the bachelor pad, and let their temperament or mother nature etc help inform your plans going forward.

 

[CassieReeves]

My mosaics work for sexlinking

Does this mean where you can easily tell if rooster or hen at hatching?

 

[CassieReeves]

My mosaics work for sexlinking

Also, does that just mean when you use the Mosaic rooster or will the hen help with this is the rooster is another breed?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Does this mean where you can easily tell if rooster or hen at hatching?

Well, usually within a day or two. Mine take a few hours to darken and lighten to where I can tell them apart. But yes, Dark chicks if bred properly will be female and light ones will be male. If you use the wrong hens, they all will hatch dark though

Also, does that just mean when you use the Mosaic rooster or will the hen help with this is the rooster is another breed?

Has to be a mosaic rooster if you want to use them for sexlinking. The Mosaic female will not make sexlinks.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I can draw up the two pens I meant in a couple hours too if that would help