Australorps breed Thread

[appps]

Well now the colours are sorted the real hard questions start ,gender

Hope to get an idea next week as they will be three weeks old. Going just on personality my guess is one of each

 

[MamaDoolittle]

My BA had random white feathers until she was about 8 wks old. Now she is all black with the beautiful green sheen
.

 

[DesertChic]

They are, but right now I'm thinking more for meat than eggs because at over 32 weeks, I'm not getting eggs from my girls. One had started laying at 24 weeks but suddenly stopped on Sept 30th and has yet to start up again. The cockerels, however, were fantastic for meat. I had six cockerels and only three pullets from my hatch, so I butchered four of the boys, kept one as a pet and the other as my breeder. The meat was fantastic, and the disposition of the cockerels is even better. My "pet", Bosch, loves to be picked up, held, snuggled and will fall asleep in my arms or on my lap, and both he and my breeder are perfect gentlemen with the girls. And they're big boys. My breeder was 8.6 lbs at 32 weeks.

 

[appps]

They are, but right now I'm thinking more for meat than eggs because at over 32 weeks, I'm not getting eggs from my girls. One had started laying at 24 weeks but suddenly stopped on Sept 30th and has yet to start up again. The cockerels, however, were fantastic for meat. I had six cockerels and only three pullets from my hatch, so I butchered four of the boys, kept one as a pet and the other as my breeder. The meat was fantastic, and the disposition of the cockerels is even better. My "pet", Bosch, loves to be picked up, held, snuggled and will fall asleep in my arms or on my lap, and both he and my breeder are perfect gentlemen with the girls. And they're big boys. My breeder was 8.6 lbs at 32 weeks. 

That is good to hear (gentle rooster), how has everyone found them rooster wise as a breed? Our last rooster was a shocker, a little bantam with a big attitude. If we can hang on to a boy if we have one this time for a bit I hope it has a better disposition. The little guy was scary enough when it went the kids, I wouldn't like to be attacked by a full grown Aussie.

 

[maddogdodge]

I had a standard Aussie rooster that was supposed to be a hen, lol. I think he was about 17 weeks when I re-homed him, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't crowing yet. He was lovely, no sign of aggression from him towards me or the other roosters he was with (also supposed to be hens, lol).

My little Bantam Australorp is just fantastic, he was a late crower, would have been 5 or 6 months old before he started crowing. I've had him sicne 10 weeks old and not once has he shown any sign of aggression towards me!

I've had other X breed roosters who were really really nasty - they got "re-homed"... probably got eaten though.
Last year I had an ISA X roo that I hatched and he was crowing at 7 weeks old, and started attacking me at 12 weeks!

My other pet rooster that I kept (some kind of random X breed) is usually very nice but just lately he's been trying to attack me (he's 18 months old, so is a bit late, lol) . Every time he attacks, I just grab him and carry him firmly under my arm for 10 minutes or so - Shows him I'm boss without hurting him or initiating a fight. He won't attack me for a few weeks after I do that!

 

[appps]

Yeah we did that with ours too (carry him) but he hated my youngest and she couldn't even go outside if he was out. and even stalked the kids. My eldest was hanging washing out and he snuck up on her, every time she looked he stopped, she turned her back he got closer till he attacked. She chased him down and put him under her arm but he whipped his head round and drew blood mm's below her eye. Little sheet he was. He was beautiful but mean.

 

[Gramma Chick]

Looka like a Roo ? look at that comb !

 

[ronott1]

Looka like a Roo ? look at that comb !

I can't tell yet--The comb can be that big on BA chicks, both pullets and cockerels. Wait until 6 weeks old or so and look for pink at the bottom of the comb and pink wattles.

 

[dynomy]

Evening all. My 3 babies have still been laying but for about 4 or 5 days we couldn't find more than 1, or none. My 70 lb. chocolate labrador that thinks she is a chicken (don't ask!) started doing circles near an old tire in the corner of my yard. I walk over, start looking under and found about a dozen (very small) eggs. All of a sudden one of my babies - Black Pearl comes over, jump on the tire and starts chirping and clucking softly, looking at me and then the eggs as if she is telling me a story about why these were all here. Then the dog comes up right behind her and she turns towards her and started "growling" like they do. The chicken dog ran back to her kennel and sat in her dog house. Wish I had this on camera.
Five minutes later we got hit with torrential rains and I had to carry one bird and herd the dog through at least 6 inches of water to the coop while the 8 other birds were in the corner screaming their little lungs out.
All were ok but I had to camp out with them until the rain slowed down.

 

[Nanna34]

Evening all. My 3 babies have still been laying but for about 4 or 5 days we couldn't find more than 1, or none. My 70 lb. chocolate labrador that thinks she is a chicken (don't ask!) started doing circles near an old tire in the corner of my yard. I walk over, start looking under and found about a dozen (very small) eggs. All of a sudden one of my babies - Black Pearl comes over, jump on the tire and starts chirping and clucking softly, looking at me and then the eggs as if she is telling me a story about why these were all here. Then the dog comes up right behind her and she turns towards her and started "growling" like they do. The chicken dog ran back to her kennel and sat in her dog house. Wish I had this on camera.
Five minutes later we got hit with torrential rains and I had to carry one bird and herd the dog through at least 6 inches of water to the coop while the 8 other birds were in the corner screaming their little lungs out.
All were ok but I had to camp out with them until the rain slowed down.

yip you have a broody hen