Need some help with breeds

[harleyjo]

I just thought of something else too. Do I have to have 2 roosters? If all I really care about is some chicks sometimes if a hen goes broody what is the purpose of the 2 roosters? I know with 20- 30 hens they say to have that many is that for breeding purposes though?

 

[PortageGirl]

Nope, you don't need two at all, or you can get two of the same breed. Also, keep in mind that eventually when you start hatching them, you'll probably wind up with an extra roo or ten, so you can decide to keep one of them if you want to.

If you will be free ranging them at any time, two is good for protection reasons as well, but you can wait to see how it all goes.

 

[farmertank]

Another options is to stay with one breed only. You said you wanted color and also a good egg layer that would also raise good chickens. Ok so...say go with Orpingtons. They come in a variety of colors, they are good layers and they are good at going broody and raising their chicks. Then say 2 roosters(Orpington you choose color) for your 25 - 30 hens then it's guaranteed that whatever they hatch they will be full blood Orpingtons even if they are a different color. This would keep things easier and you would have all on your wish list.

Just a thought


Julie

 

[Ridgerunner]

Portagegirl did a pretty good job of explaining my thinking. This might help you understand better but I warn you, Henk’s calculator can become addictive.

Cross Calculator
http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kipcalculator

When you get to this link, go to the second choice above the rooster which is the English version and click to make a selection. You can choose anything, but try red. Then choose something different for the hen, say black. Then, to the right, select “To chicken calculator.” A new screen will open. Go to the bottom where it says “calculate crossing” and select that. You will get a black male and a black female to come up. Choose “Continue with this female” and “Continue with this male”, then again select “Calculate Crossing”. Now scroll way down and you can see the options of what you might get. This is just with basic black and red.

Try it with a few selections of your choosing that include other things that control pattern instead of just color, say red mottled x Columbian. Or cross the offspring of two totally different crosses. If you do a bit of this, I think you will understand a lot better.

It is possible to select hens and roosters so you will always be able to tell which chicks came from which pairing, but it does limit you some. Say you have your BA’s hens and get Buff Orpington hens and roosters. Any black chicks will be crosses but any yellow chicks will be Buff Orpingtons. But if you choose BA hens and roosters and Buff Orp hens, all chicks will be black so you will not know which chicks are crosses.

One full sized rooster will normally keep at least 10 to 12 hens fertile. More hens than that per rooster and the fertility can drop off. It is quite possible that one rooster can keep 20 hens fertile. It depends on how active and such he is, but two roosters with 20 to 25 hens assures they will practically all be fertile. If both roosters are the same breed, then you will be sure of that side’s paternity.

You have mentioned a few times that you may want to sell chicks, thus you want to have one pure breed to sell. There are pure breeds and there are pure breeds. Certain breeders try very hard to come up with show quality chickens that conform very closely to the standards for that breed. It is not easy, requires a good understanding of chicken genetics, requires hatching out a lot of chicks and carefully selecting only the very best, very good record keeping, and is not cheap. Others keep a pure breed, but they don’t go to that much trouble to maintain or select to the standards. There is a tremendous difference in the appearance of a chicken bred to standard and a “purebred” chicken. It is body conformation, color, patterns, shape of comb, color of legs, many different things. If you breed chickens that regularly take championships at the shows you can get a lot more for the eggs and chicks. If you don’t breed championship chickens you need to advertise them as not show quality. Pure breeds not show quality may be easier to sell, but if they are going to be pets or egg producers, it really doesn’t matter if they are pure breeds or crosses, also known on this site as mutts. If you cross Orpingtons of different colors, you are certainly not going to have show quality chickens and they will not conform to the standard Orpington colors.

It comes down to what you really want to do and you obviously have to ask a lot of questions to make a good decision. Hope I’ve helped a bit.

 

[harleyjo]

You are all helping tremendously. This is what I need to be able to make some good choices. I am limited right now also because the hatchery I need to work out of doesn't have a huge assortment.

 

[harleyjo]

What options would the Wynadotte give me? Hoover carries the Silver laced.

 

[harleyjo]

I just need to be weathly so I can have a lot of coops and runs for different chickens! lol Since I don't foresee that in my near future, let me run something past you. If you have BA hens, then lets say I get a few Orpingtons or Americanas and right now I am leaning toward Orpingtons. If I have buff roosters and hens in the Orps, if I end up with black chicks it means it was one of my BA hens, right?

 

[PortageGirl]

Well, Silver Laced Wyandots sure are pretty, and the fact that they are an old breed developed in the 1800s and all, that makes them pretty interesting to me. I'm not sure if they're a heritage breed or not, but I do know I love how they look. They're easy to find since they're not a rare breed, and if the hatchery you are dealing with can get them, you like them, then go with it! Maybe someday you'll want to go get some from a breeder so they're not hatchery stock, but most of us do fine with our hatchery birds.

I'm trying to get some Buckeyes from a breeder, but it's been a bit of a problem so far and I don't recommend stressing over that yet! Start out easy with some good hatchery birds and see how it all works out.

Whatever you go with, assuming you only keep one breed of rooster, all you need to do is make sure you keep very good track of where your hens lay their eggs, and only hatch the ones from the pure hens. Any eggs you're not absolutely sure about... have breakfast!

I totally understand about wishing you had more coops and pens etc, I bet ALL of us understand!

I really suggest you pick one kind of roo and a few hens to match, and get whatever others sound nice too. Next year or whatever, you can look into deciding on something else if you want. Totally my opinion of course so no worries no matter what you do! Just have fun!

chickens always seem to after all!

//edit, I missed your comments about Orps,,, well ignore what I said about SLWs then! replace it all with Orps!

 

[harleyjo]

No definate decisions yet on breed but I will just stick with the same kind of rooster for whatever breed of hen I want pure chicks from. It appears from what I am reading that the BA are really good egg layers. So I am sure I will keep some of them in my flock. Something else that might help me decide is finding egg colors. I know the EE's and Americana's have the colored eggs. It would be great if some are dark brown and some are lighter brown. That would help me distinguish the chickens too.

It sounds like the orps are very friendly and would make great pet chickens. The Wynadottes sound nice too. I can get the Silver laced from Hoover. I would love to start another batch of chicks this summer but I better get this first batch going first and I really need to expand my outside area for them too. I already have a pecking order thing going with the 9 and 6 week olds. I can't imagine bringing another set of youngsters into the coop right now.

I hate to bother people but this is really helping me learn so I can make some good decisions. You just never know when a (chicken) opportunity may present itself and I want to know what I am doing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
If they are the first generation direct offspring of purebreeds and the only possible parentage is BO rooster with either BA or Buff Orp (BO) hens, yes.

If you have saved black hens from the cross and hatch eggs from them, the black ones will still have BA in their background, but you will not be 100% sure of the buff ones.

It is more complicted than this example because there are different genes involved, but to simplify assume only one gene. Let's call it E or e to agree with Henk's calculator. E means black. e means not black. So the pure BA has EE. The pure BO has ee. This is not a sex linked gene so each offspring gets one gene from each parent, or has Ee, and will be black. If you cross a BO rooster with ee with a mixed hen that is Ee, half the offspring will get an E from the hen and an e from the rooster and be black. Half the offspring will get an e from the hen and an e from the rooster and be buff.

In theory, all the black chicks from the cross will produce 100% black adults but in reality you can sometimes (but not always) tell which black adults are from the mix and which are probably pure, depending on which other genes are involved and how they interact. Often you get the red or buff color leaking through in the adult. But it is unlikely you will see the red or buff leaking through in the chick's down. I know you are concerned with the buff chicks and not the black, but I thought I'd complicate it a bit more for you.