I was hoping they'd grow still a bit more and gain at least another pound of weight. I'm a newbie in chicken keeping, my pullets are "rescues": a neighbor stopped taking care of his chickens and let them roam free in the street, and we found our pullets as chicks, separated from their mom and taking shelter in our front yard one night in late March, when it was raining here in SoCal. Before that we didn't know anything about chickens except what my brother-in-law remembered from his childhood in Mexico. A couple of months later he mentioned that he'd like to get a rooster for our chicks, and a lady I know from another from got some light brahma cockerels from the eggs she bought this year, and she was looking to rehome some of them. I told my BiL about the chance of getting a brahma rooster, and he said he'd like one.
When I saw the lady's flock I saw her rooster, a beautiful 14 mound bird that was the head of the mixed breed flock, which has bantams and standard size hens. She told me that there could be a risk on getting a big bird for smaller hens, but they can learn to be gentle with them, and that if the brahma looked too big, she had a 1 year old bantam rooster she also had to rehome. Well, my BiL fell in love with the brahmas, and we brought one home. The four chickens get along very well, although the brahma has hit puberty and he's been trying to mount Megatron for a couple of weeks now (he seems o favor blonds...). I regularly check on her to see if she's hurt, but there's no feather loss nor wounds, and she isn't afraid of him. He's the same age as my pullets, give or take a week, and he already crows. Right now he's a bit over 6 pounds and Godzilla kicks his butt whenever he tries to mount her, and he has never shown any agression towards anybody in the family yet. Heck, my nieces even grab him and dress him up and the poor boy takes it like a champ XD.
I'm planning to get one or two more hens next year if I can, but for now I'll wait and see how things go. I might have to find a new home for the brahma (aptly named Roostroyer), if he gets too rough, but so far he's been surprisingly gentle to his pullets and us.
