BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[holm25]

I am a little disappointed in this roo... He seems to be losing a little weight... Although he calls all the girls to food but wont eat it himself. The only time u will see him eat is right before bed or if u toss them so scratch.

 

[hellbender]

I am a little disappointed in this roo... He seems to be losing a little weight... Although he calls all the girls to food but wont eat it himself. The only time u will see him eat is right before bed or if u toss them so scratch.

Have you weighed him? Unless you have time to follow him around, it's hard to say for certain just how much he's eating. I know when my cock-birds were loose, they seemed to never stop running. I let them out in the evening sometimes and it's right back to the same thing....If one grabs a hen 200 yards away, the other 'jets' to the area to....BLOCK. It goes both ways...each blocks the other and it takes lots of exercise to ruin the 'moment', each for the other.

 

[bnjrob]

I am a little disappointed in this roo... He seems to be losing a little weight... Although he calls all the girls to food but wont eat it himself. The only time u will see him eat is right before bed or if u toss them so scratch.

Hellbender is right about running off weight with competing roosters. It's why we separate all the poultry by gender while they grow out. And even then, an adult male can still wind up getting skinnier if he's always running around. My bachelor turkeys have cut way back on what they eat since Spring brought the hormones out. They are not with females but the toms spend all day long strutting and stamping to out-do one another that they don't bother to eat until I herd them back to their coop for the night. And by then it is nearly dark and they don't have much time to eat before they can't see the food bucket.

Calling the hens to food but not eating it is a good trait - he is taking care of them. But he does need to eat. You may also want to look at what feed you are feeding them. They may do better with a bit higher protein feed if they aren't eating as much, to help them keep their muscle mass on.

And if that isn't the problem, always look for things like worms, mite, and lice that may be causing weight loss.

don't forget that if you haven't weighed him, you may not actually be seeing weight loss. They can look pretty fat when their feathers are fluffed for chilly weather, but then they look skinnier when it gets warmer and they aren't fluffing feathers as much.

 

[Beekissed]

I agree....he sounds like a keeper to me. My free range birds are all rangey looking right now due to the increased exercise of spring and they are eating less and less from the feeder each day, which means they are finding more out on range.

It may LOOK like they weigh less right now as I can see that crease of overlapping feathers on some of the chicken's breasts, but I know that they are honing down to lean muscle as they increase production, as the rooster increases breeding activity and as they all increase activity levels due to forage gaining in quantity and quality. Muscle weighs more than fat, so hefting one of these rangey, muscled out birds is like lifting a rock....could be why they call them "Rocks". Heh, heh!

It may seem counterproductive to see my birds eat less at the feeder while laying more eggs at the same time, but I'm not concerned....I won't be increasing nutrients or doing any other things to put more fat on them. They need to be a lean, mean breeding machine right now and fat doesn't help with any of that.

 

[holm25]

Thanks for all the info guys! He is the only rooster in the coop. His crop is full when he goes to roost at night but empty during the afternoon. Being he is in with 25 hens he does lots of running around and manages to cover almost all hens. I havent weighed him but I always feel how is breast was filling out and it osnt as filled out as it uses to be.

 

[hellbender]

Thanks for all the info guys! He is the only rooster in the coop. His crop is full when he goes to roost at night but empty during the afternoon. Being he is in with 25 hens he does lots of running around and manages to cover almost all hens. I havent weighed him but I always feel how is breast was filling out and it osnt as filled out as it uses to be.

RELAX. Sounds like he's going through growth stages. If he goes to bed with a full crop, he in fine fettle. As another said, sounds like a keeper!

 

[Dave C]

This is my Poulet Galouise hen

They are a French broiler bird bred for the Label Rouge free range system by Sasso.
Her brothers processed at 10-11 LB at 14 weeks.
She is 23 weeks now and started laying at 17 weeks.

Next year I will be rearing more PG's and trying to cross her with
Either my pure La Bresse

Or with one of this years DC

Or both, then crossing back to pure PG.

Hi All, well I haven't been on here this year as I lost all my birds in a fox attack while I was working away !!!!
I was devistated, but now I'm ready to start again in creating the best stastainable table bird I can.

I do have pals who live close that have some of my stock so I could start again with similar projects.
But I'm taking this as an opportunity to start fresh.

My question to you guys is this, if you had to start again, knowing what you now know, what would you do different ??

 

[Beekissed]

Hi All, well I haven't been on here this year as I lost all my birds in a fox attack while I was working away !!!!
I was devistated, but now I'm ready to start again in creating the best stastainable table bird I can.

I do have pals who live close that have some of my stock so I could start again with similar projects.
But I'm taking this as an opportunity to start fresh.

My question to you guys is this, if you had to start again, knowing what you now know, what would you do different ??

I'm glad you'll be able to recover your genetics/stock and I'm sorry about your losses, Dave. That's a hard thing to swallow.

Different as in different from starting out 40 yrs ago or different from what I'm doing now? Because I'm already doing things vastly different from 40 yrs ago and right now, I wouldn't change a thing....got everything just how I like it.

For your sake, I hope you get a better system for predators...that's a pretty hard pill to swallow, losing all your birds in one fell swoop. I've heard other folks who have built genetics for 20 yrs or more and had it all wiped out by disasters such as that, makes it hard to go forward.

 

[Dave C]

We don't have too much trouble while free ranging them as long as they are locked away at night.
I was working away for a few weeks and my son didn't bother shutting the houses at night

 

[DesertChic]

I finished weights and measures on my latest hatch yesterday and I continue to be really impressed with overall growth rates, which are still unlike anything I've seen in any of my other hatches. At two weeks of age, the combined gender average chick size is 4.98 ounces and average growth rate is 84.27%, with my largest chick coming in at 5.5 ounces and my highest growth rate coming in at 112.6% for the past week, and 365.52% since hatch. Here are some photos of the most photogenic in the group:

Comet: Ameraucan-mix/White Rock - One of my biggest and fastest growing


C4 - no name NN


Ziggy: Ameraucana-mix/Dorking-mix - I love the cushion comb!



Simon - NN/White Rock, and one of the chicks I'm most excited about.


C12 - no name yet - Ameraucana-mix/White Rock - I'm pretty sure this is a cockerel, and his shanks are surprisingly huge. I had to remove his bands, the largest I had, after taking this photo.



C13 - no name yet: Bielefelder/Australorp - This is one of my "surprise" chicks as I didn't know I'd get another Biel-mix from my Aussie girls. I suspect it's a girl, but not yet certain.



Gypsy - NN/Bielefelder - She wasn't feeling very cooperative for photography. The diva wasn't into the mood.

Willow - NN/White Rock and another chick I was really coveting, this one a pullet.