New to chickens, I would love advice!!

[Christabelle]

Hello! I'm new to the forum and I had a couple questions. I recently got out of the navy (10 years), and though I kept my horses the entire time, that was it for farm animals. I got out and got bit by the homesteading bug. I even have a cow ( crimson mooooon) I milk twice a day!

Anyway, on to the chickens. I am at feed stores a lot... They had chicks... I took home an assortment of Easter eggers, black sex link, banties, and silver laced Wyandots... They are running around eating my flies, bugs, weeds, spilled horse grain... I love it. So I decided I wanted some nicer bred birds and ordered them online. I got 8 BCM, 8 olive eggers, and 8 welsummers (ended up with 28 chicks due to extras sent. Sorry to ramble on. My question is... Now that I have 40 chickens, and some nice ones, I woul like to try my hand at incubating some chicks and maybe selling some as a small hobby. What do I do with my multitude of breeds? What roo's do I keep and how do I know who's eggs are who's? Assuming half my new chicks are roo's I will have 36 hens. How many roosters do I need for that size of flock? I thought maybe I would focus on the BCM because I think a BCM would not affect the olive egger, since they are mostly marans anyway... So maybe only keep a coupe Marans roo's? Or should I keep one of each breed? Sorry for all the questions, and I am grateful for any advice!

 

[7L Farm]

Can't answer about all the different breeds because I have three coops of chickens & their all red except one Dom. Before the third flock . I had two coops of chickens one coop with 10 hens & another coop with 16 hens & one roo. They free range so the roo had 26 girlfriends. I collected the eggs from both flocks & put 48 eggs in the bator well I was surprised that I got 39 to hatch. So one things for sure my Roo was a busy man. But I'm now gonna add two more roos because I free range & the one roo can't keep an eye out for that many ladies .
With this said I would keep at least one roo to every 15 hens. I'm gonna have one roo to each coop I have Maybe two roo's with my new flock depending on how many pullets I have in their I'm not sure yet their only 4 weeks old & I still can't tell how many pullets I have in the third coop. Time will tell & I'll cull some roo's.

 

[Mrs. K]

well, really you can do anything you want, and people do, and are mostly pleased with the results.

You do need to pick a rooster with good conformation, strong legs, vigorous, easy fleshing. And good disposition, especially if you free range, no one likes getting attacked.

MrsK