Do Chickens Get Married?

[Don 27]

I am making so we have two wooded areas to keep rooster pens during the summer so they are kept out of sun and storm winds. A lot of brush removal will be followed by placing pens over cleared area to help manage vegetation that comes up later. This needed for when we get sheep as pens will be moved around a lot in concert with paddock rotation for sheep.

You are going to remove the brush and plant trees, correct?
We may get sheep as well,Not sure yet. I have both a field and a woods. Unfortunately with the field it can be very wet during the spring time and I would like to save the back piece for farming.. But the woods on the other hand is on a hill and is almost always dry. Unfortunately the trees canopy has almost completely shaded the ground and not a lot of grass will grow. I would remove some of the trees but the wife wants privacy from the road. The good news is the ground in the woods was cow pasture 60some years ago so the soil quality is rich.

 

[centrarchid]

Professor Schweetie (EE roo)
Owl-Head (nobody likes him) (EE roo)
Singleton (EE roo)
Hanz, Franz, and Boris (Welsummer roos)
Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III (Dominique roos)
The Duke (RIR roo)
Rudy (Leghorn roo)
Marco Pollo (Buff Orpington roo)
Blanch (black hen)
Picadilly (Buff Orpington hen)
The Three Sisters (Speckled Sussex hens)
Matilda (Dominque hen)
There are 49 more hens...I did lose track and the guilt weighs heavy.

Names are much better than alternatives as follows;
BBR stag in north east pen
Gray by garden
Red Tag #1237434
Blue Tag #4980078
Red Tag #1237398
BBR cock along path to barn

My names are as follows:
Tic
Tap
Sallie
Blue
Red
Steve
Stanly
Maple
Eduardo
Edgar
Bianca
Butterscoth
Bridgett
Una
Speech
Rollo
Roger

and Love Heart and Trace

Now I need to ralph

 

[Don 27]

Doesn't seem like many people get married anymore. I'm the single parent of a 34 year old son.. My son and his girlfriend have been living together since the covid thing. I don't see any reason they have to get married and I don't think they plan on doing it.

I don't see nothing wrong with it from your point of view.

The only thing I would say is some groups get married for religious reasons.

My youngest cousin has been living with her boy friend for two years now .

Mind you, I have only been using the plastic milk crates for about 10 years so I clearly have more to learn. We used to use wooden dynamite crates which were easier to get in a area that used to do a lot of mining. Or worse yet we stuffed a bunch hay or straw into a bucket and placed bucket on its side either tied to a wall or under manger in barn. Terrible, horrible things not keeping the birds cramped in an under sized coop

I have been useing the bucket system for 3years , not a lot of time but so far they work well...

I like the idea of dynamite crates, so original lol. You use to have birds in old mining areas? Tell more. If you don't mind me asking, How do you get a contract with people to free range your birds on the property?

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Alright, I am biting. I routinely run my chickens as pairs in free-range and penned settings. I got four single mate-ted pairs going right now in similar pens plus the following combinations; six hens one rooster, four hens one rooster, and two trios. The only ones looking a little rough involved the six hens to one rooster because they are in sustained lay and the rooster is a lot heavier. Most of the time in the single mated setups the rooster can be left with the hen through start of hatch. There are some roosters that have demonstrated good behavior around chicks and can be left in with biddies. This approach better in larger pens than used for this thread.

Now for when your pants are getting smart, this an experiment for my kids (especially daughter). For me, this is a well worn path excepting for modifications to actual nest box which I have good reason to suspect will work based on voluntary use of the milk crates left all over the place in the barn. The only real envelope pushing is the use of a cereal box to keep nesting materials in place. Normally a piece of plywood would be used until chicks ready to come out. The plywood removed so chicks can some and go without getting separated from momma, especially when cold. Or the milk crate is simply tipped on its side.

The other part that will certainly stress you out is we are going to lower the nest boxes to ground when chicks hatch so hens with broods can retreat to them each night after a wonderful day of free-range foraging. Once chicks about two weeks old we are going to do something I have done many times before; we are going to incrementally raise nest boxes back up on those T-posts to get whole kit and caboodle roosting up almost four feet (1 meter since you are in Europe) to shorten interval needed to get above snakes.

These poor dear birds must be in contact with nasty soil and vegetation, plus eat a lot horrible insects. They will be watched over by free-range dogs that might them at any moment eat them.

Mind you, I have only been using the plastic milk crates for about 10 years so I clearly have more to learn. We used to use wooden dynamite crates which were easier to get in a area that used to do a lot of mining. Or worse yet we stuffed a bunch hay or straw into a bucket and placed bucket on its side either tied to a wall or under manger in barn. Terrible, horrible things not keeping the birds cramped in an under sized coop.

How do you free range your gamefowl without them fighting?

 

[centrarchid]

How do you free range your gamefowl without them fighting?

Only one rooster per location. Hens generally not so bad. Where I get into trouble is with juveniles that occasionally engage in free-for-all battles that appear to occur at specific developmental stages (~ 5 weeks, ~ 12 weeks, and ~ 20 weeks). Those battles are only between chicks / juveniles of a given brood and can be suppressed by a more mature male. More mature does not mean adult like I used to think.

I can free-range 75+ juveniles here without a problem, except for ranging off property. Males have to be harvested before first adult feather set fully in (bullstag stage), sometimes before if I am not on my toes. Dogs starting to really help me manage the fighting although pulling more feathers than I like.

Some of the reputation about gamefowl a function of how they are kept. They are a real handful when raised in confinement. Growing up I avoided what having to do now. Most rearing for me was with relatively small social groups (1 to 3 hens plus a rooster) per location where locations were at a minimum of a couple hundred yards apart. More often than not locations were on different farms in different townships.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Don't ralph, @centarchid. Someday you will look back and tease your DD bc she named a chicken Love Heart and she will ralph.

 

[centrarchid]

The hen below (Blue) is sister of Trace. She is carrying for a clutch all by her lonesome. She went broody a couple days before Love Heart did. What is cool is that she is sitting on the nest in a natural way, not cramped into a prefabricated nest. She lays down tight on nest reducing her visibility. Notice she is not getting all balled up like broody does in a high disturbance setting. She is how I imagine a lot of theropod nonavian dinosaurs covered their clutches. I think she has 9 eggs.

 

[centrarchid]

Love Heart now about a week away from her clutch hatching. We will be prepping a brooder capable of supporting both her and the brood for the first few days if it gets rainy. Otherwise, she will be out and about most likely in the woods south of house where they have cover with lots of eats.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Love Heart now about a week away from her clutch hatching. We will be prepping a brooder capable of supporting both her and the brood for the first few days if it gets rainy. Otherwise, she will be out and about most likely in the woods south of house where they have cover with lots of eats.

Can't wait!

 

[Manhen]

Now I need to ralph

My Dad's favorite name for potential son-in-laws.