Do Chickens Get Married?

[centrarchid]

This from a very similar setup nestled under some trees. The hen is mother to Trace. Nest is also made from plastic milk crate, but cut to form what I feel will be more practical later. We can see both nests when standing at back door.

 

[Manhen]

This is my second case for this thread....We have a EE rooster (very splash americauna-ey) that was hatched at the end of august. We had 12 roosters with 74 hens. They were torn up. Culprits were assorted, but the EE (three of em) were among the worst along with others at various stages of emotional maturity. ahem. So we moved 9 into the empty part of the barn, with access to roosting in the hayloft, and after 4 days we had an attack. 5 disappeared, and three were sorely wounded and were shot immediately. Two showed up later, one limping when at a run, but ok for the wear. I let the survivors back in the main pen. We have 6 now and by luck are one of each breed I am planning on maintaining (other than the one EE, "Professor Schweetie". He lost his tail and I almost put him down also, but seemed ok AND:
Point of story is he had an isolated 2x4 in our nest room that he and his hens roosted on. With so many roosters, his harem depleted until he had only one with him each evening. She was on that roost all 4 nights without him. I took the 2x4 off so there was a 1/2" plywood edge, and the night he returned they were on it. I took them off and replaced the board and in the morning they were roosting on it. The un-breedworthy, misogynistic EE rooster will remain in the flock..... Awwww.

 

[Manhen]

This from a very similar setup nestled under some trees. The hen is mother to Trace. Nest is also made from plastic milk crate, but cut to form what I feel will be more practical later. We can see both nests when standing at back door.

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We give eggs to our mailperson. This thing makes me think we could save a step.

 

[centrarchid]

We give eggs to our mailperson. This thing makes me think we could save a step.

I have an idea that will be used with American Dominiques. Nest will be placed where mail delivery guy walks by after getting out of vehicle to approach front door.

 

[centrarchid]

Not every marriage produces fruit, at least not in the first breeding cycle. Clearly that is with this human family.


Love Hearts hate rate looks to be terrible. I am afraid the frost we got prior to start of incubation killed most of the embryos before incubation started. This is in contrast with what we are seeing with hens brooding over eggs in barn that were warmer owing to stable effect. If no more hatch by late tomorrow, then we will reboot by moving pair to a fresh location so she can get back into breeding condition. Should not take even two weeks for her to come back into lay. Nest will be upgraded to match another design.

Rooster has gotten really quite and stays hen and clutch as she talks to them. The rooster is constantly watching the hen from below.

 

[Don 27]

I have an idea that will be used with American Dominiques. Nest will be placed where mail delivery guy walks by after getting out of vehicle to approach front door.

I left my mail box open once , (just once) and a hen jumped up their and began laying eggs. I made sure to leave the flag up for the mail carrier.

 

[Don 27]

You are going to remove the brush and plant trees, correct?

I bring this up because we had an area of our property that I use to fence off for my birds it was be shaded by ash trees before the ash borer came through. After words the underground took over , I was hoping by now it would have naturally shaded itself but I think I'm going to just fence it off anyway.

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.
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what breed is she?

 

[centrarchid]

Today is the big day daughter and I dismantled pen to get at nest.

Only two chicks hatched with one passing away after hatch. Second looks good. This were we learn not everything works well. The heavy killing frost came late this year freezing a lot of eggs prior to start of incubation. One chick is not worth tying up a hen's parenting effort so I am having to explain why we be transferring this chick to another broody hen with a lot more chicks tonight. That will allow Love Heart to try again when conditions are warmer. We have a genetic marker allowing us to ID this chick, as it will be a golden duckwing while other brood will not be duckwing / wild-type pattern.

 

[centrarchid]

Below are pictures of hen we were not watching so close. Daughter seeing not everyone has same rate of success. When all is done (pipped eggs complete hatching), this hen will have 12 chicks to tend.

 

[centrarchid]

Kids just got to see a problem with imprinting on a nest site. Just minutes ago we walked the yard with dogs putting birds up for the night. Love Heart's single chick was crying cold and alone on the ground below the nest it's mother was in. Mother is imprinted on nest site and confused about what to do with chick. If we did not intervene, chick would be dead before midnight. Tomorrow we will lower lest and remove cereal box cover so chick can get in. After a couple weeks my daughter will be tasked with raising the nest back up incrementally. We do not have this problem as often when hens nest on ground.