Can you help with breed and gender?

[cmom]

Yes, I guess I mean if possible we’d like to keep them but do not want fertilized eggs. We don’t have room for more babies.

Only if one of the females goes broody and she starts sitting on the eggs or you put the eggs in an incubator is there the possibility of having chicks. There is no difference in eating a fertile egg or an infertile egg. I would only keep one male, your favorite. I do breed to hatch out chicks yearly. I put no more than 10 females with a male and usually less. I do have some general population coops and pens where I will keep a male in with many females but not for breeding purposes. When my young males start bothering the young females I move them to their own coop and pen, a bachelor coop and pen. As long as there are no females they get along fine. I'm lucky to have several coops and pens but I have been doing this for many years. I do sell some birds, mostly males. Good luck and have fun...

 

[jreeve]

Only if one of the females goes broody and she starts sitting on the eggs or you put the eggs in an incubator is there the possibility of having chicks. There is no difference in eating a fertile egg or an infertile egg. I would only keep one male, your favorite. I do breed to hatch out chicks yearly. I put no more than 10 females with a male and usually less. I do have some general population coops and pens where I will keep a male in with many females but not for breeding purposes. When my young males start bothering the young females I move them to their own coop and pen, a bachelor coop and pen. As long as there are no females they get along fine. I'm lucky to have several coops and pens but I have been doing this for many years. I do sell some birds, mostly males. Good luck and have fun...

Thank you for this!! We were mainly worried about vacations, and letting a broody hen get attached to the eggs if we’re gone, but we may just have to deal with it and find someone to grab eggs while we’re away.

 

[BaaKaaawk]

You've got two roosters- one may be a cuckoo maran and the other is maybe a black-australorp or sex-links mix. They both have clear arrow feathers around their necks and coverts and saddles around their tails.

 

[jreeve]

You've got two roosters- one may be a cuckoo maran and the other is maybe a black-australorp or sex-links mix. They both have clear arrow feathers around their necks and coverts and saddles around their tails.

Thank you! This is what I thought from looking at them, but I don't have confidence in my ability to identify those traits yet. If the gray one is a maran then the darker one should be an olive egger, but I guess we'll see. He's got a sister with similar orange markings but no blue, and now I'm less confident in the farmer I bought them from.

 

[jreeve]

you need more hens or fewer roosters...sorry
...at least 6 hens for 2 roos. So if you don't have space for that many, you need to remove 1 roo, and that will be easier if you do it before they mature and start trying to mate the pullets.

Thank you! We probably have room for a couple more hens, but I don't know if I'm ready to start introducing new birds to this flock yet. I'm still learning, and not sure how to do that with confidence yet.

 

[cmom]

They are probably not pure breeds. In years past I have let broody's sit on eggs and hatch them but not anymore. Now I collect eggs and put them in the incubator when I'm ready to hatch out chicks. I make the broody's get off the nests. Some aren't happy about it. I collect my eggs in the evenings so if there is any birds in nest boxes they get put out of the nest boxes. Good luck and have fun...