Best way to manage a mixed flock and hatch pure-bred chicks .... lots of questions!

[smott]

I'm new to chicken raising, so please forgive me if my questions sound silly. I've read lots of opinions and hundreds of threads, but I thought I would ask and see if I could get some specific answers here! Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but I have SO many questions LOL.
I currently only have one coop/run with a young (approx 10-12 week old) mixed flock. If I decide to try to hatch some chicks of a specific breed (rather than a mix), what is the best way to go about that? Would rather let momma hen hatch than incubate if that's feasible. (and I do realize I'm a little ways out from this happening, just trying to get some ideas!)
How/when do I separate the ones I'm trying to breed from the others?
How many hens of that breed do I need for the roo ?
Timing.... as in do I keep them isolated until the hen goes broody, or wait until she is broody?
When do I remove the rooster from the area and leave mom to hatch her chicks?
How hard is it to re-integrate them to the original flock afterwards?


Also, one of my RIR "pullets" turned out to be a roo. He is pretty friendly, however I have quite a few small bantams in my flock as well. All of my chicks have been raised together as pets, so I don't want to have to get rid of any of them. How likely is it that the RIR roo can live in harmony with the rest of them without injuring one of my smaller hens? I have 5 LF pullets, 2 bantam pullets, 4 silkies of unknown gender, and 2 BLRW bantams (one of which I know is a roo... he is trying to crow at 10 weeks old LOL). I think I may need another coop but I don't want to have to get a divorce over some chickens

 

[aart]

No guarantees a bird will go broody and let alone when you want her to.
If you want to hatch pure breeds you are better off using an incubator.

You will need to keep chosen hens away from non-chosen males for 3-4 weeks before collecting eggs to incubate. Yes, you will need multiple enclosures, or just one male and be able to tell pure breed eggs from the others.

Cockerels are a crap shoot, if they have good technique they shouldn't harm the bantams while mating. Multiple males are almost always a problem, unless you have lots of space and a bit of luck.

 

[Parront]

I'm new to chicken raising, so please forgive me if my questions sound silly. I've read lots of opinions and hundreds of threads, but I thought I would ask and see if I could get some specific answers here! Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but I have SO many questions LOL.
I currently only have one coop/run with a young (approx 10-12 week old) mixed flock. If I decide to try to hatch some chicks of a specific breed (rather than a mix), what is the best way to go about that? Would rather let momma hen hatch than incubate if that's feasible. (and I do realize I'm a little ways out from this happening, just trying to get some ideas!)
How/when do I separate the ones I'm trying to breed from the others?
How many hens of that breed do I need for the roo ?
Timing.... as in do I keep them isolated until the hen goes broody, or wait until she is broody?
When do I remove the rooster from the area and leave mom to hatch her chicks?
How hard is it to re-integrate them to the original flock afterwards?


Also, one of my RIR "pullets" turned out to be a roo. He is pretty friendly, however I have quite a few small bantams in my flock as well. All of my chicks have been raised together as pets, so I don't want to have to get rid of any of them. How likely is it that the RIR roo can live in harmony with the rest of them without injuring one of my smaller hens? I have 5 LF pullets, 2 bantam pullets, 4 silkies of unknown gender, and 2 BLRW bantams (one of which I know is a roo... he is trying to crow at 10 weeks old LOL). I think I may need another coop but I don't want to have to get a divorce over some chickens

Since more coops = divorce, and the RIR sounds like an unexpected male, I would not keep him. (Big red cockerels are pretty tasty)! You most likely have a silky roo, you know you have a bantam boy, too. You might have to decide what breed you want to have pure bred and just keep that one boy, like aart said above. Silkys are popular pets and are pretty willing to hatch their own eggs from what I hear. I have not kept them, but I would expect the males to be pretty tame. Maybe bantam and a silky cockerels could co-exist. But, then you would need separate breeding pens to have pure chicks -- back to divorce court! Best of luck on your chicken learning experience. I had 3 roosters at a time once, on a half acre lot, I hope to not repeat the experience!

 

[Mrs. K]

ok - if you go into breeding, then you really can't keep everything...so culling, harvesting and processing birds are necessary. If you really think or don't want to cull birds - you should not hatch birds. 50% will be roosters, and there is a real and rather hard rules about the number of roosters in a confined area.

Now if you can cull, playing around with breeding can be fun. You don't have to keep breeds pure. You can hatch any fertilized eggs, and when you do so, you can get some very colorful chickens who will lay eggs. Over time, with indiscriminate breeding you might get some less than ideal physical characteristics - such as lower egg producing birds, but we are talking years.

If you can tell who is laying what egg... well then, you get to choose which eggs you hatch. A rooster will cover all the hens available to him, but you decide which of those eggs get to hatch. So if you can tell which bird lays which egg, you can hatch only the eggs that match the rooster - pure bred birds.

Personally - I recommend a hen only flock the first year. There is a learning curve to chickens, there is a HUGE learning curve to roosters. Roosters take experience and are a crap shoot. Some of them get mean, and people tend to underestimate the violence of a rooster until they are in the attack.

So hens the first year. Second year, pray for a broody, wait 3 weeks give her some chicks. Probably some of the chicks are roosters. Let her raise them up in the flock. Older birds will educate roosters, they are in a more natural chicken society with a multi-generational flock. I think you get better roosters raised this way, but no guarantees.

So - you can play with breeding in a single coop/run (good for marriage) however as the years go by, a second coop is a wonderful gift just saying. Do not keep roosters or do breeding and hatching if you cannot cull.

Mrs K
ps - a broody hen is no longer laying eggs, so the eggs need to be kept on the counter in the kitchen, I keep a rotating bowl. I date each egg, and use the older ones first, so that if and when I get a broody hen - I have eggs to put under her.

In a natural setting, a hen will hide a nest, and lay an egg in it and leave. Repeats until something about the size of the clutch appeals to her, and then she stops laying eggs and begins to set. She will stay on that nest nearly 24/7. Now the really cool thing, is that fertilized eggs are in suspension, and do not begin to develop into chicks until exposed to heat of about 100 degrees for 24 hours. So all the eggs hatch together. Kind of neat.

And a nice rooster chick - does NOT mean a nice rooster at maturity. Sometime the nicest become the worst.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Would rather let momma hen hatch than incubate if that's feasible. (and I do realize I'm a little ways out from this happening, just trying to get some ideas!)

I like broody hens too. But as stated by others you cannot control when or even if a hen will go broody. The only way you can control when or if is with an incubator. A broody hen will hatch any other hen's eggs. They do not have to be her eggs.

How/when do I separate the ones I'm trying to breed from the others?

A couple of things that might help you.

It takes an egg about 25 hours to go through the hen's internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Wednesday, Wednesday's egg will not be fertile from that rooster. Thursday's egg might or might not be, don't count on it. Friday's egg should be fertile.

A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in the flock every day, but he doesn't have to. The last part of the mating act is the rooster hops off, his part is finished. The hen then stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm in a special container near where the egg starts its journey. That sperm can remain viable for 9 days to more than 3 weeks. So as long as he mates with a hen once every seven days or so she should be laying fertile eggs. But this means you need to wait at least three weeks and maybe a bit more to be very sure that he is the father of any chick that hatches. How you keep certain hens away from the wrong roosters for that long and give the right rooster access and stay married is your problem. Unless you just keep one rooster I can't help you with that.

How many hens of that breed do I need for the roo ?

How many eggs do you want to hatch? You can pretty easily store hatching eggs for a week before starting them and them remain viable. Under ideal storage conditions you can go longer but most if us don't have ideal conditions.

There is a lot of myth and mythology on here about hen to rooster ratios. Many breeders keep one or two hens with one rooster without issues. You can have the same issues with one hen per rooster or 20 hens per rooster. When dealing with living animals you don't get guarantees as far as behaviors so you can have problems no matter what you do, but typically with true adults you get a lot fewer problems than you will with immature cockerels and pullets. So let them grow up.

Timing.... as in do I keep them isolated until the hen goes broody, or wait until she is broody?

Once a hen goes broody she stops laying eggs. But until a hen goes broody you don't know to save hatching eggs. Hopefully the broody will be a hen you don't want to hatch eggs from. You want to give the broody hen all the eggs you want her to hatch at the same time. That's pretty important to avoid a staggered hatch, which is highly stressful and often does not end well. I'd keep the right rooster with the right hens until you have all the hatching eggs you want.

When do I remove the rooster from the area and leave mom to hatch her chicks?

I never remove the rooster, I let my hens hatch with the flock. But many people do isolate broody hens while they incubate and hatch. In some cases that can be a good idea. In my opinion a lot of that depends on what your set-up looks like and what history you have.

Get rid of the thought that a mature rooster is a big danger. Typically he is not. Roosters typically leave a broody hen alone, though on rare occasions they may try to help a hen incubating. I've never seen that but a few people on here have. Sometimes a mature rooster helps a broody hen take care of her chicks. I've seen that a few times. Again, I can't give guarantees about living animals and their behaviors but the other hens are typically more of a danger than the rooster. Most of the time they are not that much of a danger either. My broody hens protect their chicks from the other hens when she needs to, which isn't that often. I've never seen a problems with a mature rooster. Notice I'm talking about mature roosters. Cockerels are not mature.

How hard is it to re-integrate them to the original flock afterwards?

I never have any problems with this but my broody hens hatch with the flock and raise the chicks with the flock. When the broody hen weans her chicks she just rejoins the flock, starts sleeping with them and hanging with them during the day. She has spent however long she was raising them before weaning them teaching the other flock members to leave her babies alone. She handles basic integration, that's part of a broody hen's job. Those immature chicks still have to handle their own pecking order issues. As immature chicks the other chickens outrank them in the pecking order and will until they mature enough to force their way into the flock. That's typically when my pullets start to lay for the pullets. There is no telling when that will be for cockerels. Until then the chicks form a sub-flock and avoid the adults. I have enough room that they can avoid the adults. If your facilities are tight they may not be able to do this. But if you are that tight you're probably going to have problems integrating them later anyway.

I don't want to have to get rid of any of them. How likely is it that the RIR roo can live in harmony with the rest of them without injuring one of my smaller hens?

When a mating takes place the hen should squat. That way the rooster's weight goes into the ground through her entire body, not just through her legs. That's natures way of protecting the hens. The more weight difference there is between the rooster and hen the more risk there is, but many people keep full-sized roosters with bantam hens without problems. Again, I cannot give you any guarantees with this but many people are OK with mixed flocks.

 

[smott]

Thanks guys! The input from experienced chicken keepers is SO helpful! I guess a lot of my questions will work themselves out as my chickens mature! CHICKEN MATH is a real thing! I struggle every day with wanting more/different kinds!
I was toying with the idea of trying to hatch some BLRW if it turns out I have a pair, since there doesn't seem to be many of those around. Also, I have fallen in love with my one d'uccle and would love to add some more of those in a separate area to themselves. (Again, I would have to convince the hubs that another coop is necessary and since we just finished the first one.... he probably isn't going to be too receptive at this point lol).
I currently have an 8 x 20 area for them enclosed, however they are allowed to free range for several hours every day with supervision. Maybe next spring would be good timing to talk about all that! By then I will know how many roos I actually do have and will probably have weeded out the ones I can keep co-habitating in peace.

 

[Kiawaki]

I must disagree with the claim that a rooster has to mate with a hen every couple of days for him to fertilize her eggs. I read on several places that it can be up to 3 weeks (maybe she stores the sperm somehow?), and in fact, once when we had 2 roosters with separate flocks of hens, and then sold one roo and joined the 2 flocks, some of the hens still laid some eggs several weeks later that turned out to be fertilized by the rooster we sold. So the usual recommendation is to keep them separate for at least 3 weeks. I do 4 to be sure.

I also have good success with encouraging hens to go broody by leaving 6 or more eggs in their preferred nest. Probably when the season is right and they feel enough eggs under them, their hormones start acting out. There are some breeds and individuals which are "broodier" than others, and when I leave enough eggs in the nest during spring, within a week I'll usually have a broody. In fact, last weekend we were away from home so we couldn't collect eggs - and lo and behold, when we came back home there was a very irritable broody sitting on the eggs that were laid during those 2 days. The same hen has only left her earlier brood a few weeks ago and I didn't expect her to go broody so quickly again.

Considering that hens are more likely to break eggs (and get used to eating them, which can be a real problem) when there are more than a few in a nest, when I try to induce broodiness I put marked hard boiled eggs in the nest. Hard boiled eggs are less likely to crack. They keep well enough even if hens sit on them on and off for a week or more. Once a hen is certain she's broody, I give her fresh eggs and the used hard-boiled ones I break and give to the flock.

Hens usually need some days to go full broody. The first signs are that she sits in the nest for long hours, fluffs up when you come close and screeches like a dinosaur. But I don't give her "real" eggs until I notice she stayed in the nest during the night, rather than sleeping in her usual place. Then I usually move her into a separate, protected nest, where other hens won't try to sneak in and lay more eggs, potentially breaking some of the ones already there. She stills needs to be able to come out of the nest every 2 days or so for some food, water, socializing and a dust bath.