One of them has such a beautiful voice - sadly he's so huge already he'll probably cause problems if he mates my bantams.
- he's not blatantly human aggressive, but he's not as respectful as I'd like my rooster to be. So that's something I want to improve.
Is the one with the good crow also a bantam, just an overly large one? If so, artificial insemination takes about five minutes and doesn't require any special gear. Downside is, you'd probably want to pen the target hens for 2-3 weeks to clear out any other roosters providing the genetic material.
The other issue is if he is big as a bantam, was he originally big as a chick? I have read that you always want to try to breed small rooster to big hen over breeding a big rooster to a small hen because the chick will likely be bigger and need the space of the egg to be be able to turn around properly, which means a larger hen would be the way to go.
I have also read, though I file this under superstition (though anecdotally it's interesting to read people's results) that if you were to take the pointiest eggs (for the hen. It's not just pointy eggs in general, but compared to how the hen normally lays) those have a higher chance of being male. (Once again, I am not saying I believe this.)
Going in to fall, I'm not sure you'd even want to runt his experiment since you'd be looking at 2-3 week clear rate for the hen, then 3 week incubation, which means they wouldn't be born til around 3rd week of October.
But conceivably, if it's not a hardship to feed and have space for them, I feel (probably mistakenly, because I am a newb) that ignoring the whole spring babies make the hardiest, best specimens, that since babies are likely to spend more time indoors til their feathers come in, then it doesn't really matter what the weather is outside, though I would get some grow lights for vitamin d and likely supplement occasionally.
You would have 4 month old cockerels 3rd week of Feb which seems to be my keep/cull age for anyone who didn't develop super early. I'm not sure when your stock normally reaches sexual maturity for mating (aside from that crazy pants genetic line you have. That is interesting and you should write more on those!) but June would make it 8 months and you'd have a whole summer season with them. So your current rooster could be retired at whatever point you feel comfortable, after teaching the cockerels through spring appropriate behavior.
Like I said, I'm not a newb so maybe it doesn't work like that. And I know a lot of it comes down to do you want to feed and care for babies when it is starting to get cold. Personally I am wishing I had started in December instead of in April because those babies spent most of the first two months inside (and then I kicked them out early. They could have stayed inside longer.)
But it also depends on your fall/winter weather conditions and a bunch of variables only you know about your situation.
On the plus side, Camp Freezer will probably be looking fairly empty by February so....
