California - Northern

I get back from Spain on Friday and have a chicken dilemma on my hands starting on Saturday. We'll call it "8 Chickens..1 Coop.." Lol. My dilemma is that I am bringing home 3 different "groups" of chickens that haven't met eachother and I have one coop to house them in. How should I socialize them so I can house them together?? Here's the "groups":
Group 1: Marraduna Basque's - 1 cockerel, 2 pullets - 13 weeks - Have been together since hatching
Group 2: Marraduna Basque - 1 pullet - 13 weeks - Was hatched with the other Basques but seperated at 8 weeks. Will be rejoining them on Saturday.
Group 3: Barnevelders - 4 pullets - 9 weeks - Have been together for 4 weeks now.
The coop is big enough for them (in fact could hold a bunch more) but I know you can't just throw them all together and hope they get along. Any suggestions?
I love that I'm sitting in another country, while everyone's partying because of the Eurocup win, and all I can think about are my chickens! Ha!
Whatever Ron says is probably best lol... I waited until after dark & combined two different groups of birds w/ my flock last month & they were all to shocked & confused to raise a fuss... It was awesome...
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**But, I had no roos & all the birds were of similar size... I know that those factors can contribute to more "squabbling".
 
Quote: no, that one's not ready yet. I think he's only 4-5 weeks old. I just wish I could remember the name of the place. Gonna try the place from Kim's link. Do you remember where you heard about that place. It was somewhere on CL the first time i heard about it. someone routinely posted it...if only I could remember where...
 
Quote: I really like this thread too! Everyone is so great and I love all the chicken sharing(obsession?) here.

I an answer a). Growing up, my Dad said the Hen could be fertile for up to 30 days. I know for a fact that they are fertile for two weeks; that is how I got my SG dorking x Ameracauana chickens.

Most people put the hens and rooster together for two weeks before collecting eggs. You should make sure they have not been around another rooster--if so you need to wait 30 days or you will get a mix of eggs from whatever rooster were with them.

b) I am just getting into the colored eggs, but from what I have read the blue gene is dominant so you only need it from one parent. Your are more likely to get blueish eggs from an hen that lays that color. For the EEs and and others like them, the pea comb is linked to blue eggs. It's not a guarantee, but to increase the chance of getting a blue egg layer you would use a rooster with the pea comb(EE or Ameracauna). This is not true for the Cream Legbars. They lay a nice blue egg and have a large straight comb.

I have a lot to learn about chicken Genetics...

Have a good day everyone
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Ron
Quote: no, that one's not ready yet. I think he's only 4-5 weeks old. I just wish I could remember the name of the place. Gonna try the place from Kim's link. Do you remember where you heard about that place. It was somewhere on CL the first time i heard about it. someone routinely posted it...if only I could remember where...
Hi Jeff,

I thought the Elvirta meat chickens would be too young, but was prepared to be very impressed with their growth rate.

I heard about the processing place from an different group.

Ron
 
I have an EE Roo (Ameracauna but I can't confirm the breeder he came from, he moved in from the neighbors but his coloring is correct. For the sake of, or to prevent argument, I call him an EE). He has produced hens that lay green, blue and pink layers. 2 Black, pea combed hens lay green eggs and 2 lay blue. A hen from a Light Brahma hen lays a pink egg. I currently have chicks from those hens and a RIR, BA and Red Sexlink. We'll see what we get. I LOVE the dark green eggs!
I was once told that you can only get a green egg layer from a dark brown egg layer (like a Marans) but mine came from Light Brahma, Buff Orpington, EE, and Red Sexlink. And they lay green eggs......
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On the fertile question, I have always waited 28 days after the last exposure to another roo before hatching any eggs and haven't had any mixes, but I do keep them separated at all times now.

zooweemama, glad you figured out what the problem was!

I'm so happy to see this thread so popular. Nice to have people close. Hopefully we can do some chicken swapping and get together like others do. I've gone between Bay Area, California All and the Neveda? threads but no one really close like a lot of those on this thread are. I see someone from my town of Paradise on here. For anyone close, I have 3 beautiful year old Polish Roos from breeding stock and some 4 week old EE roos. One of them I think will be a real looker! Zooweemama, I got my Polish from Debi. She hatched them for her friend who is a breeder. That's how I met her.
 

Sorry I haven't been posting much dealing with some health issues, but I too really enjoy this thread AND have a ton of pullets and hens available!!
 
Quote: Ok, for everyone's information. New American Poultry has upped there minimum fee to $50 and the processing fee to $2.75 per chicken. So, you'd need roughly 18 chickens to get that price. I've got 10, anyone else in the area have another 5-8 chickens that you want to get processed. We could go in togehter...
 
Ok, for everyone's information. New American Poultry has upped there minimum fee to $50 and the processing fee to $2.75 per chicken. So, you'd need roughly 18 chickens to get that price. I've got 10, anyone else in the area have another 5-8 chickens that you want to get processed. We could go in togehter...
Oh my- so $50 + 2.75 per chicken?
 

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