California - Northern

[ronott1]

I agree with needing more to start with. I would start with at least 4.

 

[Stephine]

I have a beautifull buff brahma cockerel to give away - Sonoma Valley. He is 15 weeks old, docile, reserved, not approaching humans and respectful. He was a surprise roo from the hatchery. I ordered a rooster (Welsumer) when I got my chicks, so now I have two, which is one too many for us. I meant to keep both until maturity, so I could pick the better roo for our situation, but this morning I found the brahma with a feather picked tail and bleeding. I seperated him from the rest of the flock and think it might be easiest and best for the cockerel to move to a different home now.
Is anyone interested?

Does the chick crow?

Haha! No, he hasn't crowed yet - my Welsumer cockerel took the lead very early on, crowing at 8 weeks or so. This one has been acting more like the hens, taking a back seat. He was 12 weeks in the picture, now he is 15 - comb is larger and redder (also wider than the three other brahma pullets), he is larger than the other brahmas and had beautiful black/green tail feathers, orange saddle feathers, bright orange feathers on his shoulders... clearly a roo, and a handsome one at that...

 

[ronott1]

Haha! No, he hasn't crowed yet - my Welsumer cockerel took the lead very early on, crowing at 8 weeks or so. This one has been acting more like the hens, taking a back seat. He was 12 weeks in the picture, now he is 15 - comb is larger and redder (also wider than the three other brahma pullets), he is larger than the other brahmas and had beautiful black/green tail feathers, orange saddle feathers, bright orange feathers on his shoulders... clearly a roo, and a handsome one at that...

Thanks!

He did not look enough like a cockerel for 15 weeks old. 12 weeks explains it.

Brahmas have a reputation for being gentle giants so he should be a good rooster.

 

[Magnolia7330]

mistake post. Not sure how to delete.

 

[Magnolia7330]

2 pullets are too few to start with unless they will be house chickens. Otherwise in our backyard situation we are allowed 5 hens but find 2 not enough, 3 leaves one man out, 4 has been our best number, and 5 are too many eggs for just two of us. 4 turned out to be our magic number in terms of cleaning a small coop or noise level from the flock.

As for bantams, we started with two Silkies which are the largest bantam breed and will give the largest bantam eggs, and the birds are somewhat flightless so you won't lose them flying over the fence. Cochins are not flyers either but they are slightly smaller than Silkies and IMO not as good egg layers. Both breeds are sweet and make good pets and I advise to have more than one bantam in a mixed flock. All bantams will go broody and if you aren't prepared to take them off the broody nest a couple times a day to eat/drink/dust-bathe/exercise then you might not want to hassle a broody breed. I'm accustomed to it but then I'm home 24/7 to be there all the time to monitor broody hens. We are not zoned for roos but I allow the Silkies to go broody on an empty nest to give their bodies a rest from their prolific egg-laying cycles. Broody breeds also get rather cranky toward their flockmates but return back to normal after they snap out of their broodiness but it can drive you crazy the first time you experience it.

As for mixing large fowl with bantams in a small 6 hen flock I would hesitate. I was advised not to mix bantams with large fowl and learned the hard way. I had to re-home all my heavier dual purpose hens because they were so heavy and were vicious to the littles and docile breeds. Australorps are great laying hens and mostly sweet for a large fowl but around bantams even the sweetest 7-lb large fowl will be tempted to be assertive or downright aggressive toward 2-lb bantam Silkies or Cochins. We had to re-home our Cuckoo Marans, White Leghorn, and 2 Buff Leghorns because they were too aggressive to downright vicious toward our docile Silkies and Ameraucana.

From trial and error we have found the lighter-weight and docile birds at 5-lb-&-under the best to keep around our 2.4-lb Silkies. Our best docile large fowl around the Silkies has been the purebred Blue Wheaten Ameraucana, a Blue Breda, and Easter Egger. Even though the Ameraucana was over 5-lb at 51/2 lbs she was very docile around the Silkies and non-combative even when the little squirts chest-bumped her ~ she just jumped over them or ran away rather than fight. Sweet, sweet breed. Easter Eggers are similarly non-combative birds although I found the purebred Ameraucana more docile.

As for the common laying large fowl breeds like Leghorn, Rhode Islands, New Hamp Reds, Barred Rocks, Wyandottes, Orps, 'Lorps, Sexlinks, etc, are either too assertive or too heavy around bantams in my personal experience with a small backyard flock. As pullets the large fowl chicks/juveniles and bantam chicks are fine together but as the large fowl chicks grow larger and faster they tend to pick on and stress the bantam chicks who remain smaller. Sometimes all the bantam and large fowl pullets get along growing up but at maturity around 18 months to 2 years old the large fowl start bullying simply because they can get away with it as the dociles stress to run and hide.

After cycling through 14 chickens in 5 years this is the 4 hens we found very docile and compatible with each other as far as mixing large fowl with bantam Silkies: Blue Wheaten Ameraucana purebred, Black Silkie, Blue Breda, Partridge Silkie



Sadly we lost our 3-yr-old Ameraucana last month but have another Breda on order so we'll be back to 4 chickens again. The Breda is a small 4-lb hen that is not a broody breed and cranks out 4 to 5 bright white eggs/weekly at 1.75-oz each. A really gentle breed, light-weight to have around the Silkies, and a surprisingly great egg-layer.

This was SUPER helpful. Thank you for your input/help.

 

[curious chickee]

[COLOR=333333]Hello everyone! I am new to the website and am in the Sacramento area. My city is approving a change to our ordinance to allow backyard chickens. This show take effect in approximately 6 weeks. We will be allowed to have a maximum of 6 hens and NO roosters. I think I will make a 4x8 coop with an attached run that is 8x8 feet. This should provide 32 square feet of coop space and 64 square feet of run space. Plus, there will be 32 square feet of space under the coop which I'm guessing is where the food and water should go. I can't make the run longer or wider because between the ordinance and landlord (mother in law) I have a designated area for it to be. However, I think this space should be proficient for 6 birds (minimum 4 sq. feet per bird for coop and 10sq. feet for run). They will be able to roam the yard when supervised as well (I have dogs and not sure how tasty she will find a chicken). I'm hoping I can find some already made plans for this.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=333333]I would love to start with all 6 birds. However, my SO only wants to start with two-to see how we like them, haha. I'm hoping I can push it to closer to 3 or 4 (or 6) when the time comes. He would like 2 black australorps for egg production. I would also like to have a couple bantams. What do you consider to be good breeds to go along australorps and what would you recommend to stay away from? Also, do feed stores carry these breeds or should I try a hatchery (I was looking at Meyer-there is no minimum between January and March).[/COLOR]

I agree 4 is a great number. My australorps get along well with my other breds, I have my bantam brahmas right along side them. Brahmas are even bigger than silkies and mine lay 4-5 eggs a week biggest eggs of bantam breeds good medium sized egg. They are great birds and very docile. They just go with the flow, do well foraging, abs make great broodies. My older brahmas all free range.

 

[attimus]

Newest member to the California populace

 

[ronott1]

Newest member to the California populace

Very cute!

 

[curious chickee]

It is the toughest thing watching your bird suffocating from fowl pox.

Back story: birds got fowl pox while on vacation, turned into wet pox, no b local stores had the vaccine. Finally drove an hour to another feed store to get vaccine. Vaccinate entire flock. Probably lost about 1/2 flock from heat and fowl pox. Ones dying now show no outer symptoms. Buy one day see them trouble breathing look in their mouth entire trachea covered in lesions. No other lesions on body and mouth. Add to cull many at this point so they don't suffer. I am thinking were exposed and maybe the vaccine helped with the outer lesions and eyes but not enough for internal.

 

[ronott1]

It is the toughest thing watching your bird suffocating from fowl pox.

Back story: birds got fowl pox while on vacation, turned into wet pox, no b local stores had the vaccine. Finally drove an hour to another feed store to get vaccine. Vaccinate entire flock. Probably lost about 1/2 flock from heat and fowl pox. Ones dying now show no outer symptoms. Buy one day see them trouble breathing look in their mouth entire trachea covered in lesions. No other lesions on body and mouth. Add to cull many at this point so they don't suffer. I am thinking were exposed and maybe the vaccine helped with the outer lesions and eyes but not enough for internal.

Linda Hammid is in Roseville--Since you have had fowl pox, then it is in your area and the flock will need to be immunized regularly:

http://www.sweeth2o.us/FowlPox.html

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