Ideas for future Roos....

[arwmommy]

Hello everyone, I am thinking into the future when my babies are broody and would love to have them raise some of their own babies. However, we have a couple of problems, they both revolve around the fact that we are not allowed to have roo's. (We live in a relativley urban area, with neighbors VERY close, to be honest, I am a bit surprised we are allowed to have chickens at all!)

1. How would I find a Roo for one of my girls to mate with? How long would they need to be together to get a sufficient enough clutch? Do they breed everyday, or does one mating cover a few future ovulations?? I am thinking like 6 fertile eggs, betting on a 50/50 male female ratio, so we could keep the 3 pullets.

2. What the heck would I do with any roos that hatched?????? I could not kill them, but can't have them, so how do I find people that would just *love* to have a bantam roo or two or three???


Thanks so much for your thoughts on this. The other option would be to just order sexed bantam chicks and stick them under a broody hen and hope she accepted them--- how well does this typically work???

Thanks

 

[Critter Crazy]

Your best bet, would be when the birds go broody, to buy fertilised eggs. It can be hard to find home for roos, so not sure what you could realy do. Except to try to find homes before they even hatch.

 

[4H kids and mom]

I'm with CritterCrazy on this one. You would need to have a roo around for a minimum of three to five weeks to begin getting fetile eggs, and then what if you have fertile eggs and your hens dont want to sit them? Then you've annoyed your neighbors for weeks for nothing. Best to wait until you are SURE your hens are broody and order fertilized eggs. Slip the eggs under your broody at night and replace any fake eggs she was sitting. You also should order more than you want to end up with, as a general rule, not all will hatch. Sometimes none will, but at least if you order say, 10, and you know you want 5 pullets, you'll have a better shot then if you just order 5 eggs. As for extra roos, dont plan on selling them, but you should be able to find them homes or a sanctuary that will 'take them off your hands'. Simply hang flyers or put a free ad in your local papers. They would go pretty quickly. Thats what I did with mine, and I was able to rehome very quickly.

 

[BeckyLa]

Maybe a nice drive in the country is just what you need, to scout for farms with chickens where you might be able to buy fertile eggs. Also, check with your feed store. They always know who has chickens, often people who work at feed stores have chickens and could tell you who to call for eggs. Check your local paper, the livestock section of the classifieds, because often people list chickens for sale and you could get new chicks or eggs for your broody from them. Check with flea markets, farmers markets, etc. I sell my extra birds to someone who sells at our local trade days. If there is any way you could get eggs locally, you would be better off because they will be cheaper and shipped eggs most often have a very poor hatch rate. As for roos, if you can buy your fertile eggs locally, talk to that person to see if they might want them. Again, check flea markets & farmers markets for buyers or perhaps you could trade them for chicken stuff. You could also check to see if there is a Freecycle in your area where you could give them away. hth.