I've created a monster!

[BUG126]

My mom bought our 6 yr old 15 frizzles for her birthday, putting us up to 32 chickens. Well...she decided to thin her flock of frizzles, so she put some on craigslist for $5, they are 15 weeks old. Apparently thats a good price because we are beating people off with sticks! One lady mentioned last night as she was leaving with 4 that she would buy anymore that we have in the future. I looked at my daughter and she had this funny look on her face, I could tell the wheels were turning and pretty much see the $$ signs in her eyes. Now she wants to let some hatch so she can sell them, keep in mind, they havent even started laying yet!

How in the world do we go about this? I know we need to be careful and only hatch eggs from our flat feathered gals since our roo is a frizzle. Would we put him in a separate pen with those gals? Is it a natural thing for them to stay put and hatch their eggs? Can you tell I'm new to this hatching thing? AHH!!

 

[cjeanean]

All I can tell you is that only a percentage of the eggs hatched will be frizzles. I think 3/4 will be and 1/4 won't be. If your only roo is a frizzle then you can just collect eggs from the hens you want to hatch from (if you can tell the difference between the eggs, or if certain hens only lay in certain boxes), since you can guarantee that the hens have only been mated by the frizzle roo. I would make sure you see them do the deed, and make sure you don't have too many hens and aren't stretching your roo too thin. I think it's 6-10 hens per roo, something like that. I've heard that trapdoor boxes work well in figuring out who laid what, but I personally think that some food coloring on their butts (NOT RED!!) would show up on the eggs as they are laid....LOL, just my brain trying to work....

 

[BUG126]

I'm hoping to be able to tell which is laying what eggs, but I dont know since the frizzles arent laying yet, but Mr Deeds (our Roo) sure is practicing.

We have 2 flat feathered red and 2 flat feathered white cochin girls. These are the ones I would want to hatch. I might have to try the food coloring thing, hubby will think I'm nuts!

 

[JennsPeeps]

omg I just imagined giving a poor chicken a food coloring enema

 

[wegotchickens]

Quote:
Now I've heard everything...
"What were you doing last night?"
"Painting the hens' butts."
"Is THAT how you get those pretty green eggs?"