How old before you began culling? Were many obvious early (within a few weeks)? How many were needed to grow to maturity before making breeding choices?
Like I said, trying to get an idea of the sheer space required to do a breed like this right. Not for me, for the other excitable newbies.Remember my exuberance regarding Dels? Turns out I'm not a good Del (or Col Wy) breeder candidate. Don't have room. But it took forever to get the numbers I needed to make that decision. Just trying to short cut it, so if I see a Col Wy - researching newbie, can say, go check out the HLF thread, first few days of Sept. 2013 or so...
I'm obviously not Scott, but I can share how I do some of these things. I don't typically make any culls before 6-8 weeks (preferably 8) when they go off lights, and then it's only for obvious things (leg color, twisted combs, side springs, foot deformities, breed specific stuff that might show up), I'll also mark the top 25% of each sex for fastest growth and cull the bottom 25%. Repeat at 16 weeks and 24 weeks which is when I also start thinking about the finer points of type. I try, note keyword try, to keep the top quarter to third of the each sex to full maturity, always cut down males first because they're harder to sell off, and bigger for meat.
As far as space for every 25 chicks you want to grow out for 6 months or so I would want at a minimum of a 12'x12' grow out pen, bigger always better. You can push that a bit if you add in free range. Obviously this is just a rule of thumb, and you can stagger the growth out and cull young and get a lot more birds out of the given space.
I had to hunt and peck and bug and PM and generally make an *** of myself to get enough info to make decisions. I always gotta try to add pavement to the rocky path I did stumble on, that's me.
