Faverolles Thread

[LolaBlue]

Hello there,
My first Faverolle hatched yesterday, just thought I'd share a pic of the cutie


Of course, being that it is the only one of our dozen eggs to hatch, I'm convinced it's a roo and have called it Fabio, haha

 

[hcammack]

Hello Fav peeps! I needed a break from BYC for a while, but I'm trying to come back a bit, and will try to be around to post. If I missed anything really important, let me know, otherwise, I'll catch up on posts as I go...

Glad to see you back! I sometimes take a couple day hiatus. Or a couple month Hiatus depending on what else is going on with me. Hope all the birds are doing well.

 

[sandiklaws]

Hello Fav peeps! I needed a break from BYC for a while, but I'm trying to come back a bit, and will try to be around to post. If I missed anything really important, let me know, otherwise, I'll catch up on posts as I go...

missed you, and the only important things I can think of are the Congress show and the white fav hen that was there... but that is just my neck of the woods, I am sure there is more (because Favs are always important

)

 

[echosrevenge]

Cloverleaf, how do the LF work out as broodies and mothers for you? Do they stick it out and protect their babies or get distracted and wander off on Day 16? We're considering moving to an off-grid cabin, and reliable broodies would beat the pants of installing a whole new, separate solar system just to run my incubator and brooder lights...

 

[sandiklaws]

Cloverleaf, how do the LF work out as broodies and mothers for you? Do they stick it out and protect their babies or get distracted and wander off on Day 16? We're considering moving to an off-grid cabin, and reliable broodies would beat the pants of installing a whole new, separate solar system just to run my incubator and brooder lights...

OK sorry to post on the question to Cloverleaf but...

If you are doing free range, most people swear by game varieties/crosses do the best job in regards to raising them unassisted and sticking to the babies like glue- they are super fierce too, a friend of mine has asil, and hers kill rats all the time, and 2 young roos pinned a hawk to the ground and beat the stuffing out of him- sadly the hawk got away from them or they might have done him in!

 

[sandiklaws]

found a video of a game hen fighting off a rat- they obviously put the poor rat into the cage with her to shoot the video, but it is amazing to watch

I highly doubt a fav hen would be able to do this, with this level of success... I do have a rooster that will kill and eat mice, but this is in a league of it's own

 

[echosrevenge]

No, don't worry at all about answering questions put to others, if you have relevant info!

I've read the same thing about game crosses being great broodies - in fact, I got to hear it straight from the horses' mouth, so to speak, when I had a chance to chat with Harvey Ussery for a few minutes at the Common Ground Country Fair this last year after he spoke on growing your own chicken feed crops. He has some amazing stories about teeny little Game Bird mammas beating up hawks, raccoons, minks, all sorts of predators. Our birds mostly free-range here, though the off-grid place we're looking at is in the middle of 4,000 acres of Nature Conservancy land so they probably won't free range there without supervision - there's a large greenhouse space I'll use as a brooder/broody pen, at least until they're big enough to be warm at night in a tractor grow-out pen outside. I've considered getting some game crosses - my last mixed-breed rooster was a NH Red/OEGB cross, and he was such a phenomenal guy that I let him stand over some of my not-so-pretty Faverolle girls on the strength of his personality and the reputation of OEGBs as broodies alone. My husband, however, loves Faverolles and only Faverolles, and Cloverleaf is the first person I've seen who says her Faverolles go broody regularly - most everyone else I've talked to has had them not be very reliable setters, and even less reliable mothers. Part of my impetus to let Soup (the OEGB mix) stand to the Faverolles was the hope of getting some Faverolle cross hens who would brood reliably and well (and if not, well, their dad was delicious.)

The trouble with getting a second breed as broodies, at least for us this year, is separate housing for the second breed - I would love to get some bantam cochins or game birds. But, Soup ended up becoming his namesake because he COULD NOT live in harmony with the two (much younger) Faverolle cockerels we have. I've never been able to successfully integrate Faverolles with other standard-size breeds, even just a couple of other-breed hens in a big flock of 20+ Favs, without the Faverolles suffering for it in some way, either losing beards and toe feathers, getting chased off the food, bumped to the floor of the coop at night even when they're TONS of empty roosts, etc. Any tips on how to get other non-bearded breeds to play nice with my floofy-faces would be great too!

 

[echosrevenge]

Wow.

My husband and I used to live in Mexico, and we saw the game breeds down there do some AMAZING things. We moved down there with two dogs that had each killed chickens before, and it was our neighbor's fighting game cock that taught them NEVER EVER TO EFF WITH THE ROOSTERS (I am not a personal fan of cockfighting, think it's deplorable, but we were guests living in their country and as such - not my place to judge. Sure am grateful that rooster taught my dogs to back the heck off, though.)

You're right, can't see a Faverolle hen being quite so...effective...in that circumstance. I have seen them dig up mouse nests in the goat pen (worse at this time of year because we deep-bed all winter and the mice love to nest in the straw) and go to town eating the pinkies, though. A couple of times I think I've seen them all pile on and take down a salamander or adult mouse - there's such a feeding frenzy it can be hard to ID the guest of honor afterwards.

Did you see the news story a couple years ago from the UK about the flock of French Black Copper Marans who killed and ate a fox that got into their coop at night? The owners came out in the morning to open it up and found a shredded, bloody fox fur on the floor and their rooster looking *powerfully* self-impressed. Not that I can say I blame him, that fox sure got a shock!

 

[gootziecat]

Would I ever like to get a hold of fox killing chickens. I have a terrible predatory fox problem.

 

[echosrevenge]

Us too. Part of why we were so fond of Soup the Rooster is that before we got him, we'd lost several of our free-range eating egg flock to the neighborhood fox (including a 14-lb Speckled Sussex rooster). Three days after I introduced little 4-lb cockerel Soup to his ladies, I heard the Alarm Call To End All Alarm Calls from their coop, came rushing outside with the dogs and the gun (legal to shoot them anytime if they're caught red-pawed in the henhouse or lambing shed), and found Soup staring down the fox through the fence, from where he had herded all of the hens under the coop and was standing guard at the entrance to the crawlspace. We never lost another hen from any of our flocks, and despite his constant picking on the Faverolle boys, he did teach them to dance for the ladies, tidbit them properly (he actually snapped on one of the Faverolles for being a liar once, it was HILARIOUS), and generally to be a good rooster. I do hope some of the eggs in the bator this round are his.

As far as fox-killers, most of the breeds I've read about being super protective against predators are also the ones that tend to be fairly meanspirited towards people as well - a few friends of mine have pretty wild stories about their Rhode Island Red roosters taking out weasels, rats, or other small predators, but those roosters tended also to be the ones that flogged everyone they could get to, and went for the eyes whenever they got a chance. NOT really what I want in my home flock with my 2-year-old niece cruising the yard.