Hatch-Along - Hatching GS Barred / Blue Plymouth Rock Prize Eggs from Easter Hatch-along Natural Egg Photo contest

[JoyfulPromise]

Hi chickenpooplady! Sorry I haven't updated in SO long! It just seems like this summer has gotten so busy!

My seven beautiful Blue Rock babies are doing great! I will try really hard to get some good pictures of each of them and post them this week. They will be 11 weeks old this Tuesday, and believe it or not, their adopted mother hen Little Girl is STILL staying with them and clucking to call them for bugs or treats! It is crazy, they are over half as big as she is now!

I can pretty much say for certain now that we ended up with 4 boys and 3 girls out of the seven. For a while I thought it was 3 boys and 4 girls, but one of the darker blues was a late bloomer, and is definitely a little cockerel. The other boys are the one Barred chick, the remaining Black chick, and the light blue/splash chick.

My big dilemma now is what to do with them! Currently they are just living in our main laying flock coop with everyone, and sleeping with their adopted mom on the nesting boxes...

But eventually we will have to decide what to do with the roos in particular, and unfortunately our space is limited.

I wish I could set up a small separate coop/pen with the three girls and one of the roos, but I really don't see that happening. And even then I would have to DECIDE which roo to keep, and they are all so beautiful!!!

My brother, the one who made the prize winning egg arrangement, has suggested selling them as pairs, with one odd roo of course, but I really want to keep at least one or two of the beautiful blue girls, even if I just add her in with our mixed laying flock! Decisions, decisions!!!

Well, I will go work on getting some decent pictures to share, and I will definitely let you all know what happens to our prize babies in the end. Any BYC'ers up in Michigan want a beautiful young Barred/Blue Rock Cockerel for breeding purposes?

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Ok, here is the PICTURE UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the quality or fuzziness in some of them, it is hard to get good pictures when the subjects are running all over the backyard!

I know this first picture is not the clearest, but it is a rare moment now when Little Girl has ALL SEVEN of her "chicks" together with her!


One second later...she only has Five...


A different angle...


Ok, now for the close-ups and trying to separate the individual chicks...

Here are the two pretty blue girls - they have some nice dark edging on their feathers!

and here is another side view of the pretty lacing on one of the blue girls' feathers...



The third girl was the first one to feather out, and she had a spot on her head when she was little. She has a bit of barring around her neck, so she might end up being a blue barred pullet!
I had a hard time getting a good picture of her, but here she is in the top of the picture with the splash and black cockerels below her...


This one shows her next to the one barred cockerel (he is in front) - see how she does have some barring, but it is wider and not as consistent as his?

You can also see her in the second group picture with Little Girl up top.

Ok, now for the roos! You have already seen some of the barred Cockerel in the previous pics, but here are some that focus on him...


Here you can see the black cockerel behind him as well...


Here is Blackie in his own personal photo pose...


And a nice front head shot contrasted with the green grass...


And then there is Splash, a very light blue and VERY large young cockerel!


These pictures don't do him justice, he is truly Beautiful!


The three main cockerel boys - Black, Splash, and Barred all lined up...


And then there is the Fourth cockerel, who until recently I thought was a girl, but now it is pretty evident he is not...


So there you go! My seven Beautiful Blue babies! I wish I could keep them all!!!

 

[Brookhavens]

Ok, here is the PICTURE UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the quality or fuzziness in some of them, it is hard to get good pictures when the subjects are running all over the backyard!

I know this first picture is not the clearest, but it is a rare moment now when Little Girl has ALL SEVEN of her "chicks" together with her!

They grow up so fast!!!
One second later...she only has Five...


A different angle...


Ok, now for the close-ups and trying to separate the individual chicks...

Here are the two pretty blue girls - they have some nice dark edging on their feathers!

They are beautiful.
and here is another side view of the pretty lacing on one of the blue girls' feathers...



The third girl was the first one to feather out, and she had a spot on her head when she was little. She has a bit of barring around her neck, so she might end up being a blue barred pullet!
I had a hard time getting a good picture of her, but here she is in the top of the picture with the splash and black cockerels below her...

I have one just like her. Kinda of a dark blue barred. The girls usually do have thicker dark barring.
This one shows her next to the one barred cockerel (he is in front) - see how she does have some barring, but it is wider and not as consistent as his?

You can also see her in the second group picture with Little Girl up top.

Ok, now for the roos! You have already seen some of the barred Cockerel in the previous pics, but here are some that focus on him...

He is gorgeous. The barring is very nice, crisp and even and his leg color is that nice bright yellow.
Here you can see the black cockerel behind him as well...


Here is Blackie in his own personal photo pose...

He is definitely a keeper. If you breed him back to the blue girls it will help keep the lacing crisp and dark.
And a nice front head shot contrasted with the green grass...


And then there is Splash, a very light blue and VERY large young cockerel!


These pictures don't do him justice, he is truly Beautiful!

He actually looks like a light blue barred. The splash I have are all white with either black or blue splashes of color throughout the body.
The three main cockerel boys - Black, Splash, and Barred all lined up...


And then there is the Fourth cockerel, who until recently I thought was a girl, but now it is pretty evident he is not...


So there you go! My seven Beautiful Blue babies! I wish I could keep them all!!!

It really will be a tough decision for you to make. I would definitely keep at least 2 of the boys. I learned the hard way and trying to find a replacement took months.

 

[chickenpooplady]

They are all so pretty!

 

[JoyfulPromise]

It really will be a tough decision for you to make. I would definitely keep at least 2 of the boys. I learned the hard way and trying to find a replacement took months.

I would love to, but HOW do you keep extra roosters until you need them? Do they each have to have their own private little pen/coop? I am used to our family laying flock of 30+ hens, and we only keep one rooster right now with them, though we might try to have two this next year - we have a young Buff Orpington rooster, and then my sister bought some Lavender Orpingtons and she wanted to keep one of those roosters too. I can see two roosters maybe with 30-40 hens, but not with just 3 hens! How do you people with smaller breeding stock of different breeds do it?

If I WERE able to keep two roos from this bunch, I am kind of leaning toward the Barred and the Black cockerels, mainly for color reasons. I LOVE the color of the light blue roo, and he is a BIG boy so far, but I don't know if he would be the best choice to continue a mixed Blue/Barred stock. The black one is pretty chunky too.

 

[Brookhavens]

I would love to, but HOW do you keep extra roosters until you need them? Do they each have to have their own private little pen/coop? I am used to our family laying flock of 30+ hens, and we only keep one rooster right now with them, though we might try to have two this next year - we have a young Buff Orpington rooster, and then my sister bought some Lavender Orpingtons and she wanted to keep one of those roosters too. I can see two roosters maybe with 30-40 hens, but not with just 3 hens! How do you people with smaller breeding stock of different breeds do it?

If I WERE able to keep two roos from this bunch, I am kind of leaning toward the Barred and the Black cockerels, mainly for color reasons. I LOVE the color of the light blue roo, and he is a BIG boy so far, but I don't know if he would be the best choice to continue a mixed Blue/Barred stock. The black one is pretty chunky too.

2 roos with 3 hens is a little hard on the girls but is doable. My very first production BR hatch resulted in 4 roos and 2 hens. I eventually got rid of 2 of the roos as they got older so I had a 2/2 ratio. The boys got along fine together (yes there were squabbles from time to time but nothing bad) I think because they were brothers and grew up together they just had to work out who was boss. Now that I have a bigger flock I find that the roos actually work together to keep everyone in line. Yes I would keep the black barred boy he will add some good genes to any other barred rocks you have. It would be a tough decision for me to make between the blue or black cockerel.

 

[JoyfulPromise]

I have heard a lot on here about people keeping multiple roos in a flock and them getting along ok. Our main experience so far was with a father and son pair with our laying flock - a RIR and his Black Star son. They would chase each other around the yard and knock each other off hens, or after one mounted a hen, the other one would have to mount the same hen to prove that he was boss too! We eventually had to get rid of the Black Star roo because he was getting too aggressive towards us. Later, we "retired" the RIR with a few of our older, favorite hens, and installed a new Delaware roo as the only rooster in the flock. Now that Delaware is going on 3 years old, and we are replacing him this fall with a Buff Orpington, and now possibly a Lavender Orpington as well. I guess our main worry is for the hens...we have a good number of "bare-backed" hens with only ONE rooster to 35 hens! (and the hen aprons/saddles don't work well for us) So what would happen with TWO???

Oh well, hopefully the two Orpington Roos will work things out between them. The Lavender is a couple of weeks younger than the Buff, but they have been raised together in our juvenile/pullet pen and coop. We were thinking of going toward an all Orpington flock for our main laying flock, since we liked their size, temperament, and laying consistency. But we always liked having a few Barred Rocks in the flock, and we really like the Blues too... So I was thinking use these to start a Barred/Blue coop, with a few of our nicest (hatchery) Barred Rock hens, but then we were also wanting to have a separate coop with a few Easter Eggers, since we really like the addition of the blue/green eggs to our egg basket, and THEN I got my sister a Blue Copper Maran hen last year, and she LOVES the chocolate eggs, and we are getting three more from the same breeder this fall...

HELP! Chicken math is overwhelming me!!!

We really need to move to a bigger farm!!!

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Well, the final decision (I think) has been that we are keeping the Blue Barred rooster, and the three girls to start our Blue coop. It is a smaller coop (for now) and can only hold about 12 adult chickens. So we are adding the 4 Blue Copper Marans, the Blue copper Olive Egger, and possibly 1 or 2 Blue and Splash Easter Eggers.

Sadly, this means we have to sell or re-home the other 3 beautiful Rock roosters.

I really wish we could at least keep the Black one, he is such a chunky boy, but the Blue Barred is bigger overall and I like his color, and my family is having enough trouble agreeing to the two roosters in the Larger flock, so I KNOW they wouldn't agree to having two in this smaller one. Sorry, but we are just not set up for special breeding pens and all that. SO, we will just have a mixed Orpington flock, and a mixed Blue Flock (for now). Who knows, I have been hearing such good things about the Rock breed as a dual-purpose chicken that someday they may become our main breed instead of the Orpingtons!

I am working on a post on Craigslist to sell the three other roosters. I would like to get at least $5-$10 just to help pay for the feed they have eaten, but I would seriously consider re-homing them for free to a nearby responsible BYC'er who really wants them for a breeding project.

If anyone sees this who is in Michigan and is interested, please PM me!

Thanks for following along in my Prize Blue-Barred Rock hatching adventure! And thank you again to Brookhavens for making it possible! It has been so fun to watch these beautiful babies grow!

Below is a picture of the three boys I am selling/re-homing if anyone wants to see them...

 

[coturnix]

Wish I lived closer. I would love a blue or black (with no barring!) roo to breed back with our blue barred flock.

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Sorry coturnix, but the solid Blue and Black roos have already been spoken for, and, ironically, are actually travelling in a special shipping box this week down to a BYC member in Tennessee! I was originally thinking only local as well, but apparently you CAN ship older birds in the right container if you are careful!

Hope you can find another Blue roo closer to you for your flock!