Dominique Thread!

[Poop Cleaner]

This is my first flock and they are all doing fine. My Dominique is the head hen. Very firm but fair. The Barred Rock is number three and more mean to the ones below. That seems to be how it goes though in flocks/herds.

Dominique, RIR, BR, BO, 2 EE's, 2 Ameraucanas, Andalusian, BSL.

I personally do not care for the EE's or Ameraucanas. Too dramatic and fussy. I like the rest though.

I'm impressed that a Dom is at the top of the pecking order next to the likes of a RIR and BR. I would've never thought that it would be that way. But then again acouple of my doms are pretty bossy to my other doms.[/quote]

Yes I find it amusing she is smaller but they all yield to her. She definitely has spirit but is not abusive the way the BR can be to other hens. I have noticed the flock tends to follow the big BO when wandering. But everyone yields to the Dom when eating.

 

[THeelChickinKY]

As for the egg color question - the girls knew you wanted a picture and pitched in to help!

Center egg is a SFH egg; it is a peachier tone. It is flanked on both sides by 2 Dom eggs from two different hens. Cora's on the top side is darker than the Swede egg but Prudence's on the bottom side is lighter. For reference, the top edge egg that is cut off is Marans egg and the bottom cut off egg is from Barnevelder. Hope that helps!

 

[THeelChickinKY]

@blueclip
And all of ours get along really well - no picking, a big happy family. In addition to the 3 Dom roosters, we have Dom hens, Swedish Flower hens, Barnevelders, BC Marans and one Ameraucana. Barnevelders have very similar personalities to the Doms - a great match that we've enjoyed adding this year. SFHs have similar foraging abilities and do particularly well in the winters, going out of the coop when the other breeds won't (roosters not as friendly in my experience but some people say they are). Our Marans are easy going and get along fine with the chickens but they're our only breed that doesn't like human touch, so if you're wanting cuddles, Marans probably aren't what you're looking for! Other people have had problems with Marans being aggressive, though - I think the breed personality is highly variable - but ours are as easy going with the rest of the chickens as any of them. Good luck!

 

[blueclip]

@Blueclip your rooster is young enough, really just leaning. He might mellow out into a great guy by a year of age, at six months it is mostly just guesswork as to what kind of a flock leader he will turn into.

Also... How can you tell that @JacobandMeagan's chicks have wattles? I can't see those at all (I freely admit that my eyes are not that great). I am not even all that sure just how red those tiny little combs are. And yes, I did make the photo larger by clicking on it. I can just tell that in the second photo they all do look dark, like pullets.

I dunno... That is why I posted some of my own photos, so people with better eyes could contrast and compare.

I've had two separate batches of dom chicks, the first lasted until they were 5 or 6 weeks old and then an animal broke in and took them all. There were 8 of them. The second batch is the current one I have which is 9 minus the 2 cockerels that were taken by a fox. So I have a feel for sexing dom chicks at a young age with high accuracy so far. Here are some pics with commentary to help clear things up:

These are what dom males look like roughly between 5-6 weeks (these are from my first batch), which is close in age to jacob and meagans three chicks. Look how similar their barring is to jacob and megs chicks.

Staying on my first batch of doms, this is a pic of a pullet and a cockerel. Now I chose this pic because the difference between male and female is pretty clear. Notice how the male appears "lighter" just like the dom chicks in jacob and meagens batch. Look how dark that pullet is! None of jacob and meagans chicks are that dark, leading me to believe that all of theirs are males.

Now this is koko's brother (one of the guys that got taken by the fox from my second batch of doms) at around 2.5-3 weeks old. Notice how dark he looks, he's even darker than jacob and megs chicks yet still turned out a male. The next couple of pics are also of him. In the last pic you will see him, his brother, koko and the rest of their siblings at around 7 weeks old.

Here is a good reference pic of what dom pullets and dom males look like. I'm not going to sound like a broken record as I think you know by now what a male vs. a female looks like. But in the picture you can see for yourself.

I do want to add that I'm not trying to make a big deal out of this, so I don't want anyone taking offense. I am taking this seriously because I know there are people out there who really want to know the sex of their chicks because they can't/don't want to have roosters for any number of reasons. Just throwing that out there.

 

[JediJinx]

@blueclip
And all of ours get along really well - no picking, a big happy family. In addition to the 3 Dom roosters, we have Dom hens, Swedish Flower hens, Barnevelders, BC Marans and one Ameraucana. Barnevelders have very similar personalities to the Doms - a great match that we've enjoyed adding this year. SFHs have similar foraging abilities and do particularly well in the winters, going out of the coop when the other breeds won't (roosters not as friendly in my experience but some people say they are). Our Marans are easy going and get along fine with the chickens but they're our only breed that doesn't like human touch, so if you're wanting cuddles, Marans probably aren't what you're looking for! Other people have had problems with Marans being aggressive, though - I think the breed personality is highly variable - but ours are as easy going with the rest of the chickens as any of them. Good luck!

Your experience with Marans could be individual birds, my Marans have always been the sweetest most holdable birds of my flock (they are black coppers from the tx trio) but I am not breeding them anymore and only have one hen left who was a pet. Too much extreme weather for their combs and no one like the meaties inside their beautiful dark eggs.

More on roosters, Alaskan is right, at 6 months a cockerel is just trying to figure out whether to chase away or lure-court females. IF he does treat them badly at 8-9 months put him in the rotisserie for about 6 hours and he will make good pulled sandwiches with sauce. All of my guys now (started with about 25 boys in the summer) are super gentle to the girls and when they go out to free range, they break into groups and the girls follow them around, very alert and make sure the girls get back to the coop at nightfall. I would never go back to having only one rooster, fertility is higher, and the girls are safer with these gentlemen to watch over.

 

[blueclip]

Your experience with Marans could be individual birds, my Marans have always been the sweetest most holdable birds of my flock (they are black coppers from the tx trio) but I am not breeding them anymore and only have one hen left who was a pet. Too much extreme weather for their combs and no one like the meaties inside their beautiful dark eggs.

More on roosters, Alaskan is right, at 6 months a cockerel is just trying to figure out whether to chase away or lure-court females. IF he does treat them badly at 8-9 months put him in the rotisserie for about 6 hours and he will make good pulled sandwiches with sauce. All of my guys now (started with about 25 boys in the summer) are super gentle to the girls and when they go out to free range, they break into groups and the girls follow them around, very alert and make sure the girls get back to the coop at nightfall. I would never go back to having only one rooster, fertility is higher, and the girls are safer with these gentlemen to watch over.

Interesting. He's definitely mating with the hens, he just likes to call dibs on food first and not let anyone eat while he's eating or else he'll peck them away, but I noticed that LONG before he reached sexual maturity (probably when he was 2 months or so). The dust-bathing thing is weird since I've noticed that chickens are very docile and happy during that time, maybe he just doesn't like other chickens in his space and that's normal? I don't know.

I'm sure you have a larger flock, but when you have a small flock of 6 hens, 1 rooster may be too much. I should note that there is a dark brahma bantam cockerel in there (they all grew up together) and he was given to me for free (of course I didn't know anything about that breed at the time, let alone how to sex them).

My honest assessment is that Dom roosters are pretty bad-tempered. I don't think that it would be farfetched to even say they are as gruff as...dare I say it... the RIR roosters. I'm sure you guys would vehemently disagree but even though you may have had good experiences with them, it doesn't mean that the majority of them are easy-going and nice. My humble opinion.

 

[THeelChickinKY]

I'm sorry you haven't had good experience with your Dom boys, blueclip. I won't play a broken record too much, but our 3 are angels - so sweet, love human touch, and even protective of our young son. Like people, chickens are so individual in regards to temperament, aren't they?! Now, JediJinx, you have to tell where you got these cuddly Marans! Like I said, ours are docile, but certainly not into hugs!

 

[Alaskan]

@blueclip so, where did you get your Doms from? How many mature male Doms did you get?

Our different experiences with personality could all be line related.

Anyway, I have had my Doms in small flocks and large, and with other roosters and by themselves.... One of the cockerels that I was growing out looked like he was going to be nasty, he didn't look good either, so he was an easy cull. I am not quite sure about the temperament of most of the rest of the cockerels that I have raised, since I don't let them all grow out all the way to maturity. The ones that I have let reach maturity have been nice.

My current flock rooster is excellent, I had him in with over 20 hens, and he did a great job fertility wise, as well as being nice to them. I now have him in with my four best hens, and he is being excellent with them...no feather loss on the girls. I need to wait one more week, maybe two, before I start to incubate.. So I am not yet sure about fertility.

 

[Alaskan]

I'm sorry you haven't had good experience with your Dom boys, blueclip. I won't play a broken record too much, but our 3 are angels - so sweet, love human touch, and even protective of our young son. Like people, chickens are so individual in regards to temperament, aren't they?! Now, JediJinx, you have to tell where you got these cuddly Marans! Like I said, ours are docile, but certainly not into hugs!

And where did you get yours?

I got most of mine from Cackle.

 

[THeelChickinKY]

I got mine from a breeder, Nantahala Farm in NC. Love them! Our alpha roo is always on the job of lookout but he's so gentle with the hens and us. One if the other roosters insists on being held and carried around when we're outside. And the girls are great, too, of course.