How to Breed- The roo will do all the work for you. He will jump on the hen, grab her by the feathers on her neck (sometimes even right behind her comb), do a little butt shake/pelvic thrusting, and get off of her. A good roo will usually do a little courtship dance first. He will circle the hen with the outside wing down by his leg. This is pretty much the mating "ritual". The hen is usually pretty upset about it, and will sometimes try to run away.
When to Breed- The roo will usually try to mate the hen as much as he can. Especially "ambitious" roos will mate a hen several times a day. They will do it throughout the year.
Quote: You can separate, if you only want him to breed specific hens. But if you don't care who he breeds, he'll just mate with them all. Roosters don't really care, although they have some favorites, they will breed a hen regardless of breed, age, size, or if you want him to or not.
The hen that lays the fertile egg will not necessarily want to hatch it. Most of the time, either a hen is broody or she's not. I've had a few instances where an old hen that has never been broody before decided to hatch babies, but most of the time a hen will be a consistent broody throughout her life. And a hen that is broody won't lay eggs anyways. So, usually an un-broody hen will be bred and laying the eggs. Whether a rooster has mated her or not will not affect her tendency to go broody. I suggest that if you are planning on hatching eggs you get a hen that tends to go broody a lot, or an incubator.
Quote: Hens don't go in heat. They can always be mated.
I would give him the oppritunity to breed more than one hen. While you can do it that way, you don't want him to tear up one hen by only mating with her. Plus, if you want to hatch the eggs, by having more hens giving you fertile eggs you will be able to make sure that the chicks will all hatch around the same day, whereas if you had only one you would have a very staggered hatch.
Quote: Pretty much as much as the roo feels like. He will breed one hen several times a day and tear out her feathers. But if he was in with all 22 hens he wouldn't really be able to mate them all everyday, and they would be less "damaged". While he'll still have his favorite she won't get beat up so much if he has other ladies to distract him.
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No. They will mate everyday if given the chance.
Quote: She might not, but if you have another hen that is broody she will hatch the eggs for you. If you would rather do artificial incubation (incubator) then you should buy one and put the eggs in there. If you have a broody hen then you would be fine to put the eggs under her. She might decide to go broody, but you may have to wait and just eat the eggs for awhile until she does. Or maybe you could find someone in your area with a broody hen they would "loan"/sell you.
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Not necessarily. Hens will usually pick up their laying in Spring. But it doesn't matter if they start laying in Spring or not. Some people prefer Fall Hatches because they will grow in the not-so-good laying months through Fall and Winter and will start laying and lay through Spring and Summer. Whereas if you hatch chicks in Spring they will spend good laying months growing, not laying. I hatch throughout the year, but I actually prefer hatching in Spring, because I don't have to worry about chicks freezing when they're outside with their mamas.
You have a pretty roo!
Hope this helps!
~~Ms. B
