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

[Beekissed]

Hatchery, of course.

It doesn't really matter from what hatchery they hail, over the years, every time I find myself with BOs(by design or by acquisition from another flock) they are among the first culls for poor laying, overeating, poor feathering and overall poor foraging compared to the rest of the flock. Just my experience with the breed....

 

[thedragonlady]

Hatchery, of course.

It doesn't really matter from what hatchery they hail, over the years, every time I find myself with BOs(by design or by acquisition from another flock) they are among the first culls for poor laying, overeating, poor feathering and overall poor foraging compared to the rest of the flock. Just my experience with the breed....

Bee,

See my photo in your previous post. This is an SOP Buff Orp. Gets breakfast, goes out to forage, comes in to lay, goes back out to forage until dark, gets supper. Goes to roost, to wake up, and do it all over again the next day. Poor feathering? I ration their food so nobody puts me in the poor house. I've had hatchery BOs , and they are NOTHING like the SOP birds.

 

[Seslar]

Do little round bumps on the back of my five-month-old chicks' legs really, really HAVE to mean that they are ALL cockerels? Really? Dang.

Who told you that?

No one told me that. They just look like spurs coming in. So it is a guess. Am I wrong? Because if I'm wrong, I will do a little happy dance.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Just to echo what was said above, cockerels show combs and wattles at 7 weeks while pullets do not. At 5 months, pullets look like hens and cockerels look like roosters.

How about some photos?

 

[Seslar]

Just to echo what was said above, cockerels show combs and wattles at 7 weeks while pullets do not.  At 5 months, pullets look like hens and cockerels look like roosters.

How about some photos?

Sure but theyre EE mutts potentially mixed with Black Sexlink. If they're all Roos, they'll all look similar so hard for a newbie to tell. And EEs have pea combs right? So not a huge difference. I dunno. I can take pics sure, but have had little success getting them to post with this tablet. Sorry, I must sound pretty silly but do hens get that little round button on the back of their legs? I'll go take some pics.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee,

See my photo in your previous post. This is an SOP Buff Orp. Gets breakfast, goes out to forage, comes in to lay, goes back out to forage until dark, gets supper. Goes to roost, to wake up, and do it all over again the next day. Poor feathering? I ration their food so nobody puts me in the poor house. I've had hatchery BOs , and they are NOTHING like the SOP birds.

I would have to agree! Yours look nothing like the birds from the hatchery at all. I found the same thing going on with the hatchery Dominiques. My grandma always had "Dominekkers", as she called them, and they were a great utility farm breed, hardy to the max and exceptional layers. The Doms I got from the hatcheries were horribly small, not at all hardy and were mediocre layers.

Difficult to find the breeder quality heritage birds in this state, so hatchery is the source, sad to say.

 

[Beekissed]

Sure but theyre EE mutts potentially mixed with Black Sexlink. If they're all Roos, they'll all look similar so hard for a newbie to tell. And EEs have pea combs right? So not a huge difference. I dunno. I can take pics sure, but have had little success getting them to post with this tablet. Sorry, I must sound pretty silly but do hens get that little round button on the back of their legs? I'll go take some pics.

Yes, they get them. I have several hens with small "spurs" on their legs.

 

[smyers32]

Bee,

See my photo in your previous post. This is an SOP Buff Orp. Gets breakfast, goes out to forage, comes in to lay, goes back out to forage until dark, gets supper. Goes to roost, to wake up, and do it all over again the next day. Poor feathering? I ration their food so nobody puts me in the poor house. I've had hatchery BOs , and they are NOTHING like the SOP birds.

Dragon lady, do you sell/ship chicks? I really love the way the BOs look out on the green grass. And I did research the breed and understood them to be very good dual purpose birds. Would love to get some better stock to replace my duds. If you don't sell, any suggestions where I might get some good'uns?

 

[Gargoyle]

Five months?

The three to the right are all about five months. I think the one in the middle is about 23 weeks, the one on the right is about 22, the one in the middle of the photo, the leftmost of those three, about 21 weeks.

I'm pretty sure I can tell which two are pullets and which is a cockerel,

...especially since he has been crowing and jumping the two older girls for 5 weeks now.
BTW, they were pretty scruffy already before he started giving them his attention, but it's a bit more so now.



Seslar, did you perhaps mean 5 weeks rather than 5 months?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Over the years, we've had great hatchery birds and some that were just plain duds. No other way to put it, frankly. I can define "duds" for you, but never mind. LOL

Which is precisely why we have worked at breeding our own birds, both utility and heritage. We're about 4 years into this and we simply no longer need the hatcheries' services.