Breeding

[normanfarms]

Ok so I have a buff rooster, Louis, and a mixture of hens from golden comets to Easter eggers to Dominique's. Well only the 3 golden comets are old enough to lay eggs so when one of my golden comet hens went broody we let her sit one 2 eggs at first, but I have a hen who lays her eggs in the same nesting box as my broody hen. So we stopped her at 4, the first two hatched two days ago. The other 2 she gave up on so I Have 1 in the house and threw away the other because it wasn't any good and I double checked to make sure.

So what do you think?

The daddy

Mom and the babies

The babies

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Ok so I have a buff rooster, Louis, and a mixture of hens from golden comets to Easter eggers to Dominique's. Well only the 3 golden comets are old enough to lay eggs so when one of my golden comet hens went broody we let her sit one 2 eggs at first, but I have a hen who lays her eggs in the same nesting box as my broody hen. So we stopped her at 4, the first two hatched two days ago. The other 2 she gave up on so I Have 1 in the house and threw away the other because it wasn't any good and I double checked to make sure.

So what do you think?

The daddy


Mom and the babies



The babies

Nice looking birds, cute babies - what do we think about what?

 

[normanfarms]

Thanks just about wanting to know if it was a good idea to mix breed or should I have pure bred?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Well, they are your birds, so what is good/bad is up to you - if you want birds for egg-laying or meat production, purity is not really an issue (in fact, crosses can be chosen to increase production and end up with a better bird than the pure form of either parent) - if you want to show and/or sell to folks not looking for simple production then purity will matter. That being said, with your current hen population of Red Sex Links(the comets) and Easter Eggers you already have mixed breed birds in the flock, so you are working with a moot point if/when involving either of those in your breeding program, no matter what type of rooster you use.