Colorado

[samsr]

@ ygritte Hi! Personally I love brahmas. I have a bantam brahma who had the sweetest personality! I would love to get more in the future.

If you want to try and hatch your own. I have an extra light brahma roo you can have. It shouldnt take long for the hens to be fertle. He is 8 months old and getting pretty frisky with my flock. I already have three roos or i would keep him.

 

[Mtn Margie]

I have an established flock of mixed breed of chooks that have good size to them and are good layers. All of the roos are nice to humans You are welcome to fertile eggs or I can hatch out chicks for you. They are a mix of about 10 + different breeds this year.
Icelandics
Wyandottes
BO
BR
Cochin
Marans
EE
Basque
+ more

My original Roo came from a mixed flock off of Jay Rd in Boulder. I hatched him from fertile eggs under a broody and he was just amazing, and now I have his sons, plus others from Sand Hill Preservation Center. I can't wait to see what hatches this year!!!!

 

[Mkp1983]

I didnt know you could keep 2 roosters together. The Orphington rooster I have was badly beaten up and almost killed by another rooster before i got him. He had his spurs ripped off. So I don't know how he would do with another roo.

 

[coop410silkies]

@Mkp1983
I'm fairly new myself. I'm getting my first chicks in March. I've learned a lot just through research because I was specifically looking for breeds that lay colorful eggs. From what I understand, when you breed a chicken with a brown egg laying gene to a chicken with a green egg laying gene you can get an olive egger. Their eggs are a shade of olive green and can sometimes be very dark. Some of the chicks I reserved are straight run but if I get at least one hen from each type I'll eventually have dark brown eggs, light brown eggs, blue eggs, and white duck eggs. It's pretty amazing what these little birds can do when you think about it.

@coop410silkies
Thank you! Do you have any pictures to share? I'm assuming by your name you have some ]

Iomene, I took these this morning; am not much of a photographer, and they are not very good, but here are SOME of my Silkie Mob. I started out with 10 three years ago - 5 each of Blue and White - and I hatched some, and they hatched some, last summer. There are three generations here, the oldest seem to be in a molt. These birds are definitely not show birds, and they lose more "type" with every generation. They are, however, quite interesting and easy to keep. The Roo's get along, and the hens lay through the winter. At times they are PROLIFIC, they are not intimidated by the "big" birds, and they are good foragers. I've given many away. I've had my dog penned up for a while, as she's taken to roaming, and yesterday I startled a hawk feasting on one of my Silkie hens. 'Twas the first I've seen in a long while, and now I'm starting to worry. All the birds were just hanging around, like nothing was happening. Weird. Maybe they think they can make more.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Quote:

I didnt know you could keep 2 roosters together. The Orphington rooster I have was badly beaten up and almost killed by another rooster before i got him. He had his spurs ripped off. So I don't know how he would do with another roo.

You can depending on the breed and situation.
Usually cocks that grow up together will get along for a while but one will always be dominant.
You can raise a flock of cockerels together with very few problems if they stay together and no pullets/hens are present.
If there are enough hens and enough space, lots of roosters of various breeds can coexist.
I was at the Purina demonstration farm and they have a huge chicken yard with lots of breeds. There were about 20 roosters and no fights.
I usually have anywhere from 3 to 7 roosters free ranging together and rarely a fight as most of the roosters usher their hens to different parts of the property.

Some breeds can't be kept together no matter what the conditions.

 

[coop410silkies]

I agree. I have MANY roosters - Speckled and Light Sussex and Silkies - and they have generally sorted themselves out into groups - like pairs, trios, bands, and loners - that have their own territories. These are not particularly aggressive birds, but there are sometimes cliques and bullies to watch out for, nonetheless. i've found that a NUMBER of roosters can be kept together in a large pen/coop and that the only ones needing protection are the hens. I try to keep the sexes separate. Personally, I wouldn't count on the safety of a strange newly added rooster, though. Were I Mkp1983 and wanted to breed Brahmas, I'd set the roo up separately in a pen with the female and keep them both away from the rest of the flock. Put the hen in first and add the roo to HER territory, not her to his.

 

[lomine]

@coop410silkies Your silkies are cute. How do their feathered feet do in the snow? I always wondered if the snow sometimes sticks to the feathers like it does to my dogs hair. What kind of rooster is that in your last picture? He is beautiful

@uzisuzuki You don't want to live in a hobbit hole? I totally would.

All this talk of roosters and hatching eggs makes me want to move to a place where I can have roosters. I think I caught chicken fever. And I don't even have chickens yet.

 

[coop410silkies]

@Uzi: nice, nice pics. I understand the housing challenges, glad your Mom helped out. Hope you get the eggs you want. I am working with some older Speckled Sussex - with diminished fertility? The plan is to get more chicks from them while they can still lay, and housing is going to be something of a challenge if it's possible. As if we didn't have enough problems without making them up. On the other hand, the way to get rid of a problem is to get a bigger one. Hope your work problems go away. I am retired now - and deaf. My last employers hated that, because, even though I compensated with hearing aids, I had to get everything in writing; just wasn't their way of administrating or managing. In the end, my disability turned out to be my greatest asset.

@21hens: you are putting your SS hens on a diet?! Less scratch?! Ooh, poor birds. I am trying to encourage growth in mine, but you are right: fat is not good. Especially if I want eggs to hatch. My first SS were from a hatchery in Missouri; one of the three pullets turned out to be a cock, and I decided to hatch a few of their eggs. The rooster turned into a monster, and that pairing threw the meanest God-awful cockerels I hope to ever meet; the pullet was a sweetie but not a very good layer. So I bought a cock and 5 hens from Walt Reichert in Tennessee and I have a few promising breeders from them. They are good layers, hardy, and all around good birds. The cocks from this line are not homicidal like the hatchery's line. Here are some pix of Walt's. I think everyone in Colorado should have some good SS hens in their flock.

 

[uzisuzuki]

I didnt know you could keep 2 roosters together. The Orphington rooster I have was badly beaten up and almost killed by another rooster before i got him. He had his spurs ripped off. So I don't know how he would do with another roo.

Like everyone already said, sometimes you can keep multiple together, sometimes you can't. My cockerel was trying to kill my rooster last fall, full on bloody rage. They met again yesterday after about 3 months of being separated and they still scuffled but it wasn't as violent as it has been. Also, my peacock stepped in and stopped the fight so that helped. The best advice I've gotten here from everyone about having multiple roosters to either keep them separated or to make sure you have plenty of hens to keep them both occupied.

@uzisuzuki You don't want to live in a hobbit hole? I totally would.

All this talk of roosters and hatching eggs makes me want to move to a place where I can have roosters. I think I caught chicken fever. And I don't even have chickens yet.

I would actually love to have a hobbit hole as a house, but I'd want it a little more furnished for that listing price.

 

[uzisuzuki]

@Uzi: nice, nice pics. I understand the housing challenges, glad your Mom helped out. Hope you get the eggs you want. I am working with some older Speckled Sussex - with diminished fertility? The plan is to get more chicks from them while they can still lay, and housing is going to be something of a challenge if it's possible. As if we didn't have enough problems without making them up. On the other hand, the way to get rid of a problem is to get a bigger one. Hope your work problems go away. I am retired now - and deaf. My last employers hated that, because, even though I compensated with hearing aids, I had to get everything in writing; just wasn't their way of administrating or managing. In the end, my disability turned out to be my greatest asset.

First, I love the way your birds look! I never knew how colourful chickens could be and am still surprised and delighted by the variety.

I was a lot naive last spring when I thought my freshly hatched cockerel and his sire would get along just fine and everyone would live happily ever after. Sometimes, you gotta learn your lesson the hard way. I ended up with chickens and peafowl by accident, so I was and am still not prepared at all for anything. I'm forever grateful for everyone in this thread for answering my newbie questions and giving me advice - I owe my flock's continued existence to everyone here because I'm positive I would have had my tiny rooster die on me shortly after he adopted me and I never would have gone any further into chickens than that. I would definitely rather have animal problems to figure out than dealing with my work problems because at least they're a satisfying problem to work on.

I was in a bad car accident in July 2014 and have physical/mental disabilities now. Mostly, I'm having to deal with a coworker who has it in her head that I can't do my own job and has taken it over. She also spread the rumor around that I caused my accident on purpose through the entire division we work for (a state agency, so that slander went all over the state). It's frustrating since I'm pretty much stuck here until I finish my degree. Working for the government sucks, but they do offer decent benefits since I still have continuing issues from the accident.

Yesterday was really nice and everyone finally left their respective pens! Even Memnoch and Mercury left the barn. That didn't go so well. Calypso immediately began attacking Memnoch when he rushed into the little chicken yard and that ended up causing him and Odysseus to have a scuffle. 3 months of not seeing each other was just a reset for their aggression towards each other. Thank goodness for Damien, who walked up to them and put his foot down on Memnoch to stop the fight and diffuse the situation. After that, everyone was pretty chill until a large chunk of ice slid off the roof of the house and scared Damien (he walked around the yard, honking angrily at no one in particular for about 15 minutes after that).