I started the week with 20 chickens. 19 pullets and hens and 1 cockerel. I'm ending the week with 20 chickens, 16 pullets/hens and 4 cockerels.....what a week!
First we have Charlie our obviously Cockerel who is 28 weeks. He has been obviously male for a long time and crows. We bring him in every night and he sleeps in the garage. We live in an urban area and his 5am crows are not welcome. He crows during the day but not too often. Charlie has the green egg gene and is a Marsbar (cuckoo Marans X cream legbar). His best friends are the two pullets he grew up with and we have never seen him mate.
Then we have our 3 surprise cockerels, 2 speckled Sussex and a Lemon Cuckoo Orpington.
They grew up together, we got these 3 to replace the Cockerel we were returning to the breeder ironically. We could return these 3 to the breeder but it's a very long way away and I'm not keen to do this.
We haven't heard them crow yet and we haven't seen them mate. They are friendly and we have feed them from our hand because we didn't know they were boys!
While we have 16 hens we will be getting some more probably 4 more.
Which boys to keep is my question. We don't have small children and touch wood the boys haven't shown any signs of aggression yet. I do want to keep boys for breeding.
I have a few questions:
1. What age range are *these breeds of* Cockerels considered teenagers?
2. Is it true that generally the other roos don't crow *as much* if there is a dominate one?
3. Does anyone have any experience with Orpington Rooster's? I've seen a number of people have issues with SS. Anyone have a Marsbar and have any comments on their behaviour.
4. Is 2 roos to 20 hens to many? The Orp and SS are the youngest in the group.
5. We may cull the roos we don't keep, I know the meat might not be the best but at what age is the best time to process these boys?
6. What age do they *these breeds generally* stop growing? The Orpington is already bigger than I knew a chicken could get.
7. Just for fun who would you keep? I'm thinking the Marsbar and the Orp with stay but so long as they don't start crowing we'll give them more time to see who behaves well. If they do start crowing they'll have to go, we don't have the space in the garage for 4 boys!
Thanks for any advice, pictures of the boys for tax
First we have Charlie our obviously Cockerel who is 28 weeks. He has been obviously male for a long time and crows. We bring him in every night and he sleeps in the garage. We live in an urban area and his 5am crows are not welcome. He crows during the day but not too often. Charlie has the green egg gene and is a Marsbar (cuckoo Marans X cream legbar). His best friends are the two pullets he grew up with and we have never seen him mate.
Then we have our 3 surprise cockerels, 2 speckled Sussex and a Lemon Cuckoo Orpington.
They grew up together, we got these 3 to replace the Cockerel we were returning to the breeder ironically. We could return these 3 to the breeder but it's a very long way away and I'm not keen to do this.
We haven't heard them crow yet and we haven't seen them mate. They are friendly and we have feed them from our hand because we didn't know they were boys!
While we have 16 hens we will be getting some more probably 4 more.
Which boys to keep is my question. We don't have small children and touch wood the boys haven't shown any signs of aggression yet. I do want to keep boys for breeding.
I have a few questions:
1. What age range are *these breeds of* Cockerels considered teenagers?
2. Is it true that generally the other roos don't crow *as much* if there is a dominate one?
3. Does anyone have any experience with Orpington Rooster's? I've seen a number of people have issues with SS. Anyone have a Marsbar and have any comments on their behaviour.
4. Is 2 roos to 20 hens to many? The Orp and SS are the youngest in the group.
5. We may cull the roos we don't keep, I know the meat might not be the best but at what age is the best time to process these boys?
6. What age do they *these breeds generally* stop growing? The Orpington is already bigger than I knew a chicken could get.
7. Just for fun who would you keep? I'm thinking the Marsbar and the Orp with stay but so long as they don't start crowing we'll give them more time to see who behaves well. If they do start crowing they'll have to go, we don't have the space in the garage for 4 boys!
Thanks for any advice, pictures of the boys for tax
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