Cuckoo Maran Rooster x (breed here) offspring?

[Lensters]

By the time you buy the turner and a fan you might as well have a cabinet incubator. If you can't find a good used GQF Sportsman in your area you might try a Dickeys Incubator. I don't have any experience with them but they appear to be well built.

 

[australorp_breeder]

From hearing what RAREROO had said about the incubator I'm not really sure I want to get it anymore. The hatchery catalogs I'm looking through have other incubators, of course, but they're like between $200-$500. This is kinda, maybe off-subject but do you guys know how long it would take a rooster to cover 9 hens? Estimate? And then how long before they will start laying fertile eggs?

 

[Lensters]

Quote:
If your rooster has his "roo" on, he'll have covered all the hens within a day. The eggs that the hens are working on at the time they are mated probably won't be fertile but the next one will. So, with a good rooster, two days at the most.

 

[australorp_breeder]

LOL! 'Roo' on. Do you think an older male would get the job done better then a younger one? Or do you think it just depends on instincts and all that stuff? The last cockerel I had would only mate with three of my pullets, and he would always try and go after the same ones.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
I don't know about the age thing, I've never kept roos long enough for them to get old, I usually only use them for a season or two depending on what kind of replacements I have. But something I've noticed is that my roos seem to try to breed more often when they have competion, like if I have 2 or 3 roos in the same pen, they seem to try to breed more than when I only have one, but the down side to that is, like in my Speckled Sussex pen, right now I have 3 roos with 10 hens, and what usually happens is that when one roo tries to breed, another will come push him off and steal the hen while she is pinned down, and as soon as he gets on, the third roo pushes him off and does the same thing, so it seems that the third roo to try is usually the one that ends up being sucessful, and that causes a lot of unnessessary wear on the hens, so this spring after I do a little crossing with on of the best roos for some project work, I will try to separate my Sussex into two pens, right beside each other and have one roo with 6 hens in each pen and sell the other roo who has poorer type than the other too.

Another method that I think would work well, but would take time, is to have a pen of hens have 2 roos but only one at the time in the pen and rotate them out every few days, since it also seems that roosters breed more hens in a shorter period of time when they have been separated from the hens a while.

And when I start breeding bantam phoenix, to keep the roos tails long and in top condition, I will probably keep the roos by themselves in tall covered pens and just keep a few hens of each variety and put them in one at a time for him to breed then take them back out. That way they wound be stepping on the roos tail feathers and pulling them out like they would if they were kept with him all the time.



Oh and I will PM you and give you my friends email address and you can see if he can build you an incubator to the size you want it and it should be more affordable than those higher prices one from the hatcheries if you are wanting a smaller one.

 

[Chic Chick]

I've got to show you the difference in egg colors between my black australorps and my cuckoo marans. My australorps lay a pinkish colored egg and they come from show quality stock, and the marans are hatchery stock.

 

[australorp_breeder]

Thank you for the breeding tips RAREROO. I'm only going to be having one rooster though, so I was thinking of just rotating the hens with him in the open coop that I have. I'm also going to have to watch the eggs carefully because the only eggs I can't tell apart are my Black Jersey Giant eggs, and my Black Australorp eggs. Most of the time my Jersey Giants lay larger eggs, but sometimes they'll lay the size of an Australorp.

And thank you for the picture Chic Chick! I can't wait until my Ameraucana starts laying

They begin to lay around 6 months, right? Currently, mine is almost 3 months.

 

[Crouchkim]

I mixed my CM Rooster and ?White Brahma? I’m not sure what she is. The 3rd picture are their offspring. The pullet is white, with gray on head/neck, and splashed with gray speckles. The young rooster is gray-ish with some barring. Why is the pullet not barred? Is the mom’s white dominant in females?
I also have a CM Rooster x Blue Andalusian hen. The resulting pullet is plain gray; not barred. She also doesn’t have the interesting feathers of an Andalusian. Again, I thought the CM Roo would cause all offspring to be barred, but not for these two pullets.

I’m happy with the appearance of all of them; just surprised the hens aren’t barred/Cuckoo.

 

[Chooks man]

I mixed my CM Rooster and ?White Brahma? I’m not sure what she is. The 3rd picture are their offspring. The pullet is white, with gray on head/neck, and splashed with gray speckles. The young rooster is gray-ish with some barring. Why is the pullet not barred? Is the mom’s white dominant in females?
I also have a CM Rooster x Blue Andalusian hen. The resulting pullet is plain gray; not barred. She also doesn’t have the interesting feathers of an Andalusian. Again, I thought the CM Roo would cause all offspring to be barred, but not for these two pullets.

I’m happy with the appearance of all of them; just surprised the hens aren’t barred/Cuckoo.

the reason some of the CM offspring are not barred because your rooster is a dark cuckoo { single barred } only half of his progeny will barred .

chooks man