Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Achickenwrangler#1]

What is everyone's experience with Rooster to Hen ratio? I mean what has worked for you guys? I have 9 hens 3 of which are Bantams between the ages of 18 months and 13 weeks old. My Rooster is a OEGB and his mate is the mother of a 6 week old cockerel. I don't want to have cock fights here and since my eldest Roo is king of the roost I'm just wondering if their are enough ladies to go around? What do you guys and gals think. Since my cockerel is a Banty he wouldn't make much of a dinner.

there is no hard and fast rule...you have enough hens. Your roo will stay king, little roos might never challenge him directly since he's already in his place, they may even work side by side protecting the floçk.(trying to steal a hen as he gets older)big roos will just run him off.there will be minor spats but even nature needs a backup plan should one die. The real problem is putting two mature roos together for the first time. Now you get a knock down drag out comb tearing fight. I kinda like watching my little cockerells sort it out-there's no real bloodshed and lets me see who has style and stamina...helps me decide who I'm going to cull later.

 

[cherylcohen]

Not an OT but I have two rows each with 4 nestboxes in my laying coop. I thumbtacked up an old opaque shower curtain cut to length and cut several flaps in front of each nest box and also one for the opening of the auto door. My purpose was to keep the Starlings out of the nestboxes, they were breaking the hens eggs. It worked............

perfect thanks so much!

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Whew! I finally read this entire thread (finished late last night,) and want to let you know how much I have enjoyed it. Thank you, Beekissed for starting this thread and sharing your backstory. Thank you, old-timers, for restoring my confidence in common sense chicken husbandry. All of my grandparents were farmers, and kept white and red flocks for eggs and meat. My parents were farmers, and one of the delights of my childhood was to peruse the McMurray Hatchery catalog and select my chicks for future orders. When I finished high school, I moved to town to get an education and make a living. Twenty years later, my husband and I left the big city for small-town life and we ordered more hatchery chickens to produce our own farm-fresh eggs. We decided to attempt raising our own meats, and with a fondness for old-timey things, I began to research heritage chickens.

A little over a year ago, I stumbled upon Bob Blosl's photo essay comparing standard-bred RIRs and BRs with their hatchery-bred versions, and in 30 seconds I was converted. Instead of a chicken-raiser, I wanted to be a chicken breeder. Reading the information and mis-information available on this forum (and other venues,) had all but convinced me that I was as ignorant about chicken rearing as I was about breeding to a standard. You - Beekissed, Al, Walt, Bob, NYReds, Fred, Pop, Ridgerunner, Mississippifarmboy- have reminded me that chickens are livestock, not exotic housepets and I thank you for that. Thank you, Jim Hall, for reminding me that we all start where we are, with what we have.

My current goal is to breed one variety of chickens, with all roosters on the farm being of that variety. We will probably always have a few hens of other breeds as I also enjoy a colorful egg basket.

This year, I am practicing on hatchery Dorkings and like them much more than any other hatchery variety I have ever had. We brood in the garage, then move them to the unheated barn to live in wire rabbit cages until they are big enough the barn cats will leave them alone. At that point in time, they get to free range on our 24 acre farm, under the protection of 3 LGDs. The chickens stay fairly near the sheep and dogs, and I have only lost chickens to a juvenile delinqent LGD puppy. The poor doing chicks are decomposing, the good and mediocre ones are growing out. My husband and I are both able and willing to butcher our own chickens, but a nearby Amish farmer will also butcher poultry and we really like that option. (Man, do I hate plucking chickens!!) In another year or two, I want to obtain some standard-bred Dorkings and begin to breed them.

Again, I thank you old-timers from the bottom of my heart for starting and sustaining this thread.

Respectfully,
Angela

P.S. Any tips for getting English sparrows out of the barn?

 

[qball53]

I can read just fine thank you................ you failed to miss the point or refused to acknowledge it. Culling is commonly refered to as permantly removing from your flock....... as in no longer in circulation to put it in a way as not to OFFEND !!!. Good breeders don't cull birds from their flocks by selling them to some unwiting fool or pawning them off as better than they are. I am saying if the term culling is to be understood just moving a bird, the Pet chicken community will be up in arms and you will have their heads spinning more than usual, thinking culling just means moving one Fu-Fu bird from one couch to another. Do you get my point now.
The OT thread is not Wikepedia we still know what culling means, we have been using it longer than the BYC has been in exsistance. Just trying to spell it out in true OT fashion as to not create another trend or fadish term. Putting things into perspective you know how these online groups can jump to irrational conclusions on the hearsey of the internet information, use of common age old terms need to be preserved in fairness to all. With all due respect I do understand where your coming from on this and websters is correct but that doesn't mean it's right and how it's used.

I hope you can get your Polish hen back to the flock and regular laying habits, have you ever thought about those nest boxes with smaller round openings and bigger insides, kinda like a wild bird house entry only bigger. My next boxes will be made like that to see if I can keep them from crowding 2 and 3 to one box when they have 20 available LOL. Good luck to you.

Hey I like the idea you have for nest boxes, think I'll give it a try myself. I get tired of seeing 3-4 hens pilling into one box. It's 90+ degrees here with an 85% humidity. That hen in back or on bottom is way over heated. I think I will also install something tht can be closed up in the late afternoon/dusk to keep the younger hens from trying to roost in the boxes.

I also agree with you for the use of culling it does mean killing. I for one am tired of buying birds from active breeders just to find out I received their "cull". I pledge to myself that I will not do that to another! If I sell a bird and it is not up to my breeding standards you will hear that from me before you give me your money. That is not to say that every bird not fit for my breeding is not fit for breeding in general but you will know why it does not work for me. And if it doe not meet standard you will also hear that from me. Obviously a good many hens make fine layers for EATING EGGS and if that is what you are buying that is what you will pay for.

 

[cluckitall]

The forums of today are the closest thing to an old BBS I can find, so I'll have to make do. And I am grateful that the OT's made the leap to the Internet - you have enriched our chickenkeeping experience with your wisdom.

Hear, hear! I've been reading this thread on and off for five days (I think I'm on page 90) and WOW have I learned a lot! Although it's kinda comforting that a lot of of it boils down to common sense, familiarity, and practice

Got my first flock about six weeks ago and am thoroughly hooked. They're a lovely mix of NHRs and assorted rocks with one handsome cuckoo maran rooster, very cheap (like, the whole lot for 30 bucks) and other than a nasty case of leg mites, apparently very healthy. HOWEVER... I'm getting an average of just under five eggs a day (in June!) out of eight hens which means somebody is really not pulling their weight. Highest day was seven, lowest was three, over the past month it averages out to 4.7 eggs a day. So I'm in the process of sorting out who the slackers are, with the intention of culling the worst offenders late this fall (but they're such CUTE offenders! Oh well - they'll also be yummy offenders

)

What I'd like to do in the meantime is hatch out some of the fertile eggs so the pullets are about ready to assume their laying duties when I 'retire' the elders. They'll be an interesting mutt mix, at least Here's my question, though, for anyone with experience breeding mutts -- the marans are not considered particularly good layers, I understand. Where the male is the one who carries the double chromosomes in chickens, will the maran laying characteristics outweigh the NH/Rock ones? Or should hybrid vigor make up for some of that?

(Took me the longest time and a lot of googling to find out why you had to have a male red/black over a barred female and not the other way round to get a sex-link!)
Thanks very much, all! I am thoroughly enjoying my chicken adventures and, after some fattening up and feeding on the Adele Davis plan

I will happily stack the taste of my $30 flock's eggs up against almost anybody's! (Okay, maybe not Fred...) But dayum they're yummy!!! And nice hard shells now, too

 

[NotAFarm]

P.S. Any tips for getting English sparrows out of the barn?

I'm an OT in age years but not chicken years.........but I have experience with sparrows in the barn. My chickens have the back part of our 28 x 45 foot barn for a coop. It has two sliding doors that I open each morning. I had a problem with sparrows entering the barn through the doors so I hung a clear vinyl shower curtain (a used one from the house) from the top of the 10 foot high opening. I hung it high to block the chickens from using the truss closest to the door as a roost so it hangs about half-way down the door. I also hung one of those plastic owls in the rafters in the front part of the barn where the chickens don't have access. I haven't had any in the barn since. If you currently have sparrows living in the barn, you will need to get rid of them before hanging the curtian, and by get rid of, I mean cull by Al's definition. We tried just chasing them out but the barn had become home to them and they wouldn't leave. I wasn't prepared to have them bringing who--knows-what into the barn so the B-B gun was enlisted to deal with the ones that refused to find a new place.

 

[Sami's Mommy]

Ok im only on page 50, so maybe this is covered but what does LGD stand for?

 

[MOChickenShoes]

LGD = livestock guardian dog

 

[Gypsi]

Learn something new every day. I thought LGD was just Large guard dog.

 

[oshun55555]

I have been raising chickens for 50 years, and culling always meant they went in the pot. We never thought to look up a word we used so frequently, and all the Old Timers knew what I meant when I culled the roosters from my egg laying hens ( when you order 200 chicks at a time you get quite a few cockerels in the bunch even if you order all pullets). I know that as time goes by words do change meaning so maybe that's what this is all about. I was at the feed store the other day and I heard a young girl call her female friend "Dude" now in my day if you called someone a dude you can pretty much know he had testicles. So Al if I ever have a reason to talk to you about culling, there won't be no doubt about what we are talking about.