Breeding chickens

[thiebert]

I currently own 2 roosters and 3 hens (3 months old) and I'm interested in purchasing more chickens. The chickens I own are of a mixed breed. I would like to get more specialty chickens but also don't want to keep them separated from the other chickens. If I buy a flock can I put them with my other chickens or if I buy hens the other roosters will just breed right? I really like the silkie chickens! I'm new to this lol

 

[cypressdrake]

No matter what breed you go with, you have to keep them separated from the mixed breeds, or they'll all be mixed breeds. If you want to breed pure breeds, get you a breed and before they are mature for breeding, get the mixed breed out the pen, and just keep the pure breed together. That is the only way you'll have a pure line of any breed. A rooster will breed any hen, they do not discriminate. Good luck!

 

[donrae]

You can keep most breeds together, but your mention of silkies triggers an alarm. Silkies don't always do well in a flock of dual purpose birds, they get beat up on. Not always, but often enough you'll need to have a back up plan ready in case they need rescuing.

If you want to breed your pure bred birds, you'll need to separate the hens from the non desired roosters about 3 weeks before you start collecting eggs to incubate. Once you have the desired number of eggs, you can put everyone back together.