Breeding a White Leghorn hen

[Ariel301]

I finally got my chicken flock started about three days ago with the remnant of a neighbor's flock after she gave up on them. I got some easter eggers and one white Leghorn hen. The EE rooster I got is a bantam and is way too small to mate with the Leghorn hen, but we would like to get some fertile eggs from her to expand our chicken population. I have a good friend who has a flock of Leghorns and some roosters, so I am thinking about sending our hen to her flock for a while to get her bred, sort of like you'd do with a horse or a dog I guess lol. How long would be a good time to leave her there to be sure she's laying fertile eggs? And then after that, how long can we expect the eggs to keep being fertile when she's not with the rooster anymore?

 

[garp94]

I don't know the answers to your questions. I just have an alternate suggestion to get the same result:

If it's a good friend, just ask for [ or buy some] fertile eggs.

Why?
1) no stress on your leghorn. Being the only bird going to a new place, she's sure to get picked on the whole time she's there, then coming back to your flock and probably losing her place there.

2) you and she don't have to worry about swapping germs

3) more new genes for your flock [mother and father of said new eggs are unrelated to everyone ]. Only an plus if you plan on keeping a rooster from this batch.

Just my opinion.

Good luck with the chickies.

 

[Ariel301]

more new genes for your flock [mother and father of said new eggs are unrelated to everyone ]. Only an plus if you plan on keeping a rooster from this batch.

We won't be keeping any rooster chicks; we've got the one EE rooster and that's all we can have here, and he may not even be able to stay long. We live with my in-laws and they don't like the idea of being woken up early by crowing. I'm hoping that they'll warm up to it more as we start getting eggs and yummy chicken dinners! I'm not a big fan of the leghorns, they'd all be raised for eating while we wait for chicks of breeds I want to be more available in the spring.

As for a fertile egg swap, she doesn't have any...with five kids they eat every egg they get and don't have any extras to sell right now. The only eggs they eat are homegrown ones, so they wouldn't be up for buying a dozen at the store to fill in with if I took some of theirs. I'm not too worried about germ exchange with her flock, I know they are extremely healthy. Mine, being new, I want to give them a few weeks first to be sure they are ok before we do this rooster stud thing.​

 

[thespinningcottage]

I must agree with Garp rather strongly on point number 1. Perhaps you could buy her a dozen eggs as a swap for some of her fertile ones. A small price to pay to protect your hen from the stress of being moved twice.

 

[mandelyn]

Not to mention the smaller roosters are more than capable of breeding a big hen.

I saw it today, my little sisy Bantam rooster pulled off a histerical balancing act on one of the standard sized game hens.

Get her her own standard or leghorn man, but the Bantam will do just fine if she holds still. LOL

Always a bad idea to move chickens around alot, they don't lay when they're stressed, so when you brought her back she wouldn't start laying right off anyways and you'd only get maybe 4-5 fertile eggs, or none.. depends.

 

[PrinceSandwich]

maybe if you wanted to you could trade her you EE rooster for a leghorn rooster.

 

[they'reHISchickens]

Don't' give up on the banty roo. Have you checked the leghorn's eggs for fertilization? We have a single leghorn hen ( from a 4H embryology project) and she is half the size of our EE's and a third of the size of our Orpingtons. Leghorns are egg laying machines, not meat birds by any stretch of the imagination. Don't bother raising them for meat. If you want meat and are going to hatch the eggs anyway, it would pay you to get (almost)ANY other breed.
Edited to add... if Leghorns are small, what would a banty /leghorn cross be? Oh my!