Dominique Thread!

[JediJinx]

I picked up these three 2.5 month old australorps today and dropped them into my coop of dominiques (rooster in flock) and they all got along. Well, I should say they mostly got along; it took a few minutes for a few of the hens to peck one of them and the rooster did not fight or peck ANY of them. There was quite a bit of clucking either from panic or confusion but other than that it seemed like a pretty non-violent integration into the flock. Can anyone explain how/why this happened? The lorps are pictured below.

 

[blueclip]

@JediJinx, you said a rooster will not cause drama unless its a mature rooster, it's obvious that at least two of these lorps are cockerels, will my dom rooster be mean to them once they grow up and he realizes theyre males? Also, how long will it take for these guys to fully integrate into the flock without being afraid of anyone, having anyone peck them etc.?

 

[JediJinx]

@JediJinx, you said a rooster will not cause drama unless its a mature rooster, it's obvious that at least two of these lorps are cockerels, will my dom rooster be mean to them once they grow up and he realizes theyre males? Also, how long will it take for these guys to fully integrate into the flock without being afraid of anyone, having anyone peck them etc.

Its going to depend on how much space they have and the individual personalities of your roosters. Last year I had a plethora of cockerels (about 25 altogether) that I raised in with my flock. They were fine with their dad for a while, until about 7-8 months and at that point I butchered and sold the ones I wasn't going to use for breeding. Once the young males start getting their adult hormones they will try to establish dominance over your flock rooster and there will be fighting. My flock rooster is pretty laid back and right now he lives with one of his sons who is also pretty laid back. The younger roo is dominant now over his dad. I did have another one of his sons in there that I ended up selling because he was picking on his dad too much. I attribute these two living together harmoniously to the fact that they have a large fenced run (about 50 x 50 ft) and also free range part of the day, AND have a large coop (8 x 16) and plenty of hens to keep them occupied. They have between them 13 hens. The younger roo is now almost a year old. IME they get more laid back with age. This is why I love the doms so much, they are so much more sensible than other breeds and adapt to whatever you need from them..

 

[JediJinx]

Blueclip, you asked about how long it takes to get them used to the youngsters, I have never just thrown in a bunch of new birds without first introducing behind a fence, so I am not sure. My guess is they will leave them alone after a few days, its easier with more space to run around, free ranging is best when you want to integrate them.

 

[blueclip]

@ JediJinx, The coop is medium in size if not small for all 10 of them. They are free-ranging as we speak. The new guys stay in the coop while the doms are out and about. This is their second go-around, this morning I had to physically put the lorps outside to free-range but I had a nightmare putting them back into the coop because Koko my rooster was causing a panic and stood guard at the door. I'm just going to let them to their own thing at their own pace. I noticed this morning that my lowest ranking dom hen is mean to them. Oh well, we'll see how things are in a week.

 

[BusyBearMama]

So I've ordered a few eggs and hope to hatch some Dominique's to go with the ones I have and then I will separate them out and they'll have their own coop and ideally we will be able to put more runs off the large walk in pen and they'll be able to run all around the fields safely! My favorite breeds are doms, brahmas, barnevelders, maybe Russian orloffs and mixed breed/landrace type birds especially those who lay blue/green/random colored eggs. But we also have Sussex, nh reds, rocks & orps... We only have 4 pens though and the main one is an egg layer coop and the smallest is a coop inside that one for barnies & mixes & at the moment we have one rooster in each of the other two separate pens, one is small and my husband will use for meat birds so the rooster in there at the moment I'm probably going to sell but the other coop has the Sussex and some rocks and maybe a dom but it will be all doms as soon as we have a cockerel does anyone collect hatching eggs in the winter? What do you do that makes that successful because how fun to hatch in the winter! Plus people always want hatching eggs!!! Not that I'm planning some spaz sales spree lol but I've never considered being able to do that because i have some trouble with eggs freezing ...

 

[jbraswell]

Trying to find out if my chick is a girl or boy."she" has a little white dot on the head but is lighter than my other chick and has some gray and the toes are yellow. The other one has a big yellow spot in the head but the legs are darker not yellow

 

[Alaskan]

Trying to find out if my chick is a girl or boy."she" has a little white dot on the head but is lighter than my other chick and has some gray and the toes are yellow. The other one has a big yellow spot in the head but the legs are darker not yellow

if she is much lighter in color, then she is probably a he.

Dominique roosters are usually very nice.

 

[jbraswell]

I will try to get some good pictures and post with them together. They are both very sweet. They are only 2 weeks old right now.

 

[jbraswell]

I know these arent the greatest photos. I am new to raising chickens. This little dom i am almost is a girl. She is really dark all over with the yellow dot on the head and darker feet.