MWSIFarm
Chirping
Hi all,
A few months ago we had our first successful hatching in our flock of silkies, Im not really pushing hard for success and just letting the hens do what they want, we hatched every egg and had 15 chicks, unfortunately I learn a harsh lesson is how these little ones can be wee Hodini's and a lot of them escaped the coop and were picked off by birds of prey etc. We ended up with 4 making it, they are all girls, so my lack of experience some what saved me a dirty job later.........
Our coop and run are more than big enough for about 15-20 birds, we have 9 hens and our Rooster (Vincent). I want to hatch another lot to boost our numbers but I don't want them bred from Vincent's daughters, I have read that 1 level of interbreeding is ok but I still don't like the idea and am going to have to work out solution one day, my question is about picking which hens eggs you want to hatch, If ive learnt correctly after the hen has been bred with she is fertile for 10 days or so? Does this mean I can make a "Breeding Pen" which is seperate to the rest of the coop and run and just pop a couple of the hens in there and let them lay and brood?
Do I need to have the hens and roosters separated? I wouldn't have thought this was a good idea, one rooster with just a couple of hens might get hectic. Or do I need to seperate the 4 children birds until a hen has laid a clutch and started sitting?
Open to all ideas, thanks in advance.
A few months ago we had our first successful hatching in our flock of silkies, Im not really pushing hard for success and just letting the hens do what they want, we hatched every egg and had 15 chicks, unfortunately I learn a harsh lesson is how these little ones can be wee Hodini's and a lot of them escaped the coop and were picked off by birds of prey etc. We ended up with 4 making it, they are all girls, so my lack of experience some what saved me a dirty job later.........
Our coop and run are more than big enough for about 15-20 birds, we have 9 hens and our Rooster (Vincent). I want to hatch another lot to boost our numbers but I don't want them bred from Vincent's daughters, I have read that 1 level of interbreeding is ok but I still don't like the idea and am going to have to work out solution one day, my question is about picking which hens eggs you want to hatch, If ive learnt correctly after the hen has been bred with she is fertile for 10 days or so? Does this mean I can make a "Breeding Pen" which is seperate to the rest of the coop and run and just pop a couple of the hens in there and let them lay and brood?
Do I need to have the hens and roosters separated? I wouldn't have thought this was a good idea, one rooster with just a couple of hens might get hectic. Or do I need to seperate the 4 children birds until a hen has laid a clutch and started sitting?
Open to all ideas, thanks in advance.