Brahma Thread

[Vickis Girls]

The cock to hen ratio depends on how important egg fertility is to you. As a general rule a single large breed cock can handle six or eight hens in his prime. Young and old cocks fewer. Add more hens and he will not get around to all of them. Keeping multiple cocks in a small flock can lead to bickering. Larger flocks can handle multiple cocks if the dominate one will allow the others to breed with hens that he doesn't favor. Serious breeders breed from pairs or trios. Not only is fertility better but they are selecting for traits. As far as the crowing goes. My limited experience is that if kept together, the dominate cock is fairly much the designated crower. The others not so much. When I've gotten rid of the crower, the next in line takes his place and becomes the crower. Just on observation with small numbers of cocks. The good news is that as a rule the Asiatics aren't nearly as noisey as most other breeds.

I find chicken behavior quite fascinating. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

 

[dandydoodle]

2 of my new brahmas from NY they are just babies so

Thanks, they are pretty.

 

[LukesCityHens]

dandy: I might have a couple dozen hatching eggs available late spring. Mostly darks with a few darkroo/buffhen mixes in there.

and as for roo/hen ratio I have 10 hens and 1 roo. and I'm 100%sure the roo gets all the hens, he is fairly young still and fertility is only about 70% right now

 

[RJ6Mommy]

I live in California and have not been able to find show quality Brahma breeders. We just returned from the PPBA show in Stockton empty handed. We would like to find someone that sell/ship their chicks or eggs so that we can see more of these beautiful chickens here!

Have you had any luck finding a breeder? I live up here in the hills in CA too and am trying to find some.

 

[QCZoo]

I am also looking for a show quality breeder ..for bantam buffs. we are in the process of trying to become a show quality breeder...we have one young cock and one young hen, and two month old pullets that are the chicks of the older pair. I wouold really like to add another rooster, and a couple of hens from another line. Our rooster has been shown and judged to be excellent quality, he won best of breed, best feather leg bantam, best bantam and reserve grand champion at his first show in January. His little hen was also judged to be excellent quality, not *quite* as good as him, so he beat her right off the bat, but the judge did say if he wasn't there, she would have done very well too.

 

[Curly Beard]

First i would like to thank you for answering . That kind of confirmed what i guessed would be how it goes with Brahmas. When i am ready to get birds i wanted about 6 -8 hens and a rooster ( about all the feed i would be able to afford to buy ) . I wanted to only order birds once every 5 years or so and hatch a yearly replacement flock myself from the birds i had so i could select for type and production and adding a few outside birds on occasion to keep from getting too much inbreeding . When you have the right number of roos to hens the hens dont stay all torn up all the time . ... the one person that said that they had 10 hens per roo then confirmed that the roo was only covering 7 hens regularly ( 70% fertility ) it will probably be later in the year before i come back to america and look for a place where i can have chickens again ...here in Morocco i am in a 4 story apt and keeping chickens in the little courtyard wouldn't cut it ...lol

 

[SD Bird Lady]

First i would like to thank you for answering . That kind of confirmed what i guessed would be how it goes with Brahmas. When i am ready to get birds i wanted about 6 -8 hens and a rooster ( about all the feed i would be able to afford to buy ) . I wanted to only order birds once every 5 years or so and hatch a yearly replacement flock myself from the birds i had so i could select for type and production and adding a few outside birds on occasion to keep from getting too much inbreeding . When you have the right number of roos to hens the hens dont stay all torn up all the time . ... the one person that said that they had 10 hens per roo then confirmed that the roo was only covering 7 hens regularly ( 70% fertility ) it will probably be later in the year before i come back to america and look for a place where i can have chickens again ...here in Morocco i am in a 4 story apt and keeping chickens in the little courtyard wouldn't cut it ...lol

I have 1 roo for 5 girls and he covers them fine without any torn up or bald backs. I think 6-8 would be a good range. I will say the hens wont let him be too forward though. Some hens are just more willing than others so that makes a difference too. When it comes to favorites.

 

[LukesCityHens]

First i would like to thank you for answering . That kind of confirmed what i guessed would be how it goes with Brahmas. When i am ready to get birds i wanted about 6 -8 hens and a rooster ( about all the feed i would be able to afford to buy ) . I wanted to only order birds once every 5 years or so and hatch a yearly replacement flock myself from the birds i had so i could select for type and production and adding a few outside birds on occasion to keep from getting too much inbreeding . When you have the right number of roos to hens the hens dont stay all torn up all the time . ... the one person that said that they had 10 hens per roo then confirmed that the roo was only covering 7 hens regularly ( 70% fertility ) it will probably be later in the year before i come back to america and look for a place where i can have chickens again ...here in Morocco i am in a 4 story apt and keeping chickens in the little courtyard wouldn't cut it ...lol

He's covering all the hens, he is young and isn't gettin' it in(hahaha) on all of them. But that was about a month ago and haven't been hatching since then

 

[ElitePoultry]

Wé Have à pen of Buff laced and Golden laced brahmas and also am breeding thé palomino brahmas as well. I live in Anderson ÇA right outside of Redding

 

[chickee]

Have you had any luck finding a breeder? I live up here in the hills in CA too and am trying to find some.

I have the bantam buff Brahmas. Neff and Hobb's lines. I think I have some nice birds to work with. I am very close to being able to hatch my first eggs from them. I should be able to fix you up with hatching eggs or chicks in a couple of months or less.