newchickychick
Chirping
- Apr 2, 2025
- 70
- 134
- 86
So far, we've got QUITE a wide range of chickens.
Barred rocks, olive eggers, and a potential australorp or marans (or two) are in our oldest chick batch (6 weeks, out in the coop/run). We're planning on not keeping any of the roosters from this batch. We had 50/50 hens to roos just based on combs/wattles at this age. (Well, 8-9 hens and 10 likely roosters)
We're hoping to keep Polish as our roos. We plan to have 15-20 hens per roo minimum, of course, and with the following coop/run; We've got a decently sized coop/run nearly finished (30' x 15' coop, run is going to wind up closer to 60'-70' x 15' or maybe longer). So we're hoping space will be a motivator for peace.
In our youngest chick batch, we've definitely got (y'know, assuming some weren't mislabeled
);
- 5 Americanas
- 3 Sapphire Gems
- 2 complete mysteries
- 2 possible RIRs?
- 4 Silver Laced Wyandottes
- 5 Polish (Tolbunt, 2 Splash, 1 Blue or Black with white, and 1 Gold laced)
- 1 Crazy Cackle Toppie
- 1 Lakenvelder
- 2 Cochins
- 4 Phoenixes/Yokohamas
- 3 Buff Orpingtons
Our next batch will be another 10 mysteries and another 10 guaranteed 'top hats' (so spitzhauben, polish, etc.) from Cackle to hopefully bump up the Polish number.
With a wider variety of different chicken breeds, and quite a few Polish, is it less likely the Polish roos we want to keep will be subjected to pecking/picking and will be happy roos? So far, all the baby chicks have gotten along SWIMMINGLY. No Polish (nor the Crazy Cackle), or any chick at all for that matter, have had their head feathers pecked/feathers plucked at all. We will be keeping only hens from the oldest batch, so the roos would come from this batch or the next so they'd be younger than the older hens (older by about 4 weeks) or a future batch if none of these wind up with good personalities. We are more than happy to wait for the right rooster, or roosters, to come along.
Will that be better or worse that the roos are younger than our oldest we'll be keeping the hens from? I know it's something regardless we will need to keep an eye on, and be sure to keep the peace if it simply doesn't work. We plan to build a secondary coop inside the run that will have its own partition of run so we can introduce chickens smoothly for transition periods.
However, I'm wondering if it's better to have a widely mixed flock for less chances of bullying or if it's just impossibly difficult to keep Polish roos with non-Polish hens, even if there's plenty of other Polish hens. We of course plan to have the 'backup coop' in case some simply cannot handle living together. But I'd love to hear if there's been any success stories with very mixed flocks, or if there's been horror stories so I know what to look out for/be aware of.
Barred rocks, olive eggers, and a potential australorp or marans (or two) are in our oldest chick batch (6 weeks, out in the coop/run). We're planning on not keeping any of the roosters from this batch. We had 50/50 hens to roos just based on combs/wattles at this age. (Well, 8-9 hens and 10 likely roosters)
We're hoping to keep Polish as our roos. We plan to have 15-20 hens per roo minimum, of course, and with the following coop/run; We've got a decently sized coop/run nearly finished (30' x 15' coop, run is going to wind up closer to 60'-70' x 15' or maybe longer). So we're hoping space will be a motivator for peace.
In our youngest chick batch, we've definitely got (y'know, assuming some weren't mislabeled
);- 5 Americanas
- 3 Sapphire Gems
- 2 complete mysteries
- 2 possible RIRs?
- 4 Silver Laced Wyandottes
- 5 Polish (Tolbunt, 2 Splash, 1 Blue or Black with white, and 1 Gold laced)
- 1 Crazy Cackle Toppie
- 1 Lakenvelder
- 2 Cochins
- 4 Phoenixes/Yokohamas
- 3 Buff Orpingtons
Our next batch will be another 10 mysteries and another 10 guaranteed 'top hats' (so spitzhauben, polish, etc.) from Cackle to hopefully bump up the Polish number.
With a wider variety of different chicken breeds, and quite a few Polish, is it less likely the Polish roos we want to keep will be subjected to pecking/picking and will be happy roos? So far, all the baby chicks have gotten along SWIMMINGLY. No Polish (nor the Crazy Cackle), or any chick at all for that matter, have had their head feathers pecked/feathers plucked at all. We will be keeping only hens from the oldest batch, so the roos would come from this batch or the next so they'd be younger than the older hens (older by about 4 weeks) or a future batch if none of these wind up with good personalities. We are more than happy to wait for the right rooster, or roosters, to come along.
Will that be better or worse that the roos are younger than our oldest we'll be keeping the hens from? I know it's something regardless we will need to keep an eye on, and be sure to keep the peace if it simply doesn't work. We plan to build a secondary coop inside the run that will have its own partition of run so we can introduce chickens smoothly for transition periods.
However, I'm wondering if it's better to have a widely mixed flock for less chances of bullying or if it's just impossibly difficult to keep Polish roos with non-Polish hens, even if there's plenty of other Polish hens. We of course plan to have the 'backup coop' in case some simply cannot handle living together. But I'd love to hear if there's been any success stories with very mixed flocks, or if there's been horror stories so I know what to look out for/be aware of.
Last edited:
