Peeps in Europe!

[abpatchy]

Oh no!!! That is bad luck for sure!!! But give them some time... sometimes they are just girls looking like roosters. In a couple of weeks it should be more visible. They are cute!!
But it's a rooster year... I have 60% or more roosters...sigh

 

[BDutch]

Oh no!!! That is bad luck for sure!!! But give them some time... sometimes they are just girls looking like roosters. In a couple of weeks it should be more visible. They are cute!!
But it's a rooster year... I have 60% or more roosters...sigh

If it was 66% roosters I wouldn’t mind.

If I want to give it another try, I should act quite quickly. Or maybe its too late already. Because we want to go on a vacation in august. Leaving baby chicks to the care of a neighbour is probably not a clever thing to do.
Besides a broody is not something I can pull out of my pocket. For incubating, a brooder and a seperated setup for chicks, I definitely have no space/ no time this summer. So probably I just wait another year.

 

[abpatchy]

If it was 66% roosters I wouldn’t mind.

If I want to give it another try, I should act quite quickly. Or maybe its too late already. Because we want to go on a vacation in august. Leaving baby chicks to the care of a neighbour is probably not a clever thing to do.
Besides a broody is not something I can pull out of my pocket. For incubating, a brooder and a seperated setup for chicks, I definitely have no space/ no time this summer. So probably I just wait another year.

If you could hatch now it would not be an issue to go on vacation.
The biggest issue would be if you would set eggs in an incubator and having to keep them separate from the adults. They would definitly be big enough by August. Mine are 8.5 weeks old and they are just about like adults in their behavior.
I am really sorry that it didn't work out like you planned.

 

[chickengr]

I have send pics of my chicks to the man of the bantam RIR eggs to shed/shine * his light over the gender of these chicks. I suspected two roosters in the meantime. One didn't have a clearly toothed comb.

He said , maybe all three are cockerels. The one I was hoping to be a girl was smaller and didn’t have a comb a few days ago. But now she became a he too. The comb was later because she didnt grow as fast as the others.

So sad.
Now I need to make plans for another future then I hoped for. I’m making up my mind. Maybe I try another hatch. And bring the cockerels back to where they came from.
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* what is the right expression?

they are too young to be sexed. time will tell.

 

[BDutch]

Yes I wait at least some more weeks before I try to find snother home for them.

All other female chicks I had didn’t grow such combs so fast. So I suspect they are cockerels (and the RIR crack too). But to be 100% sure I probably wait until they are about 10-12 weeks old.

Maybe I keep one cockerel until early spring next year. To be a daddy for new offspring.

If there is one that isn’t loud and not aggressive he even can stay for many years to come.

 

[Erba]

Well I don't know if it is a cockeral year, I got an exact 50/50. Still too many, but I have to wait to see how they grow out. I just dispatched 4 so down to the 2 mature ones from October 20. now, because it was really getting out of hand. So gone is the one I wanted to sell, the one with the faulty comb, and the two from January's mixed hatch. I'm gonna see if I can't breed out the faulty comb issue that one breeder had, with the hen. They were far the best from type. I read comb issues are best breeded out using a cock with a good comb, the other way around with a hen is rarely successful.

 

[abpatchy]

Well I don't know if it is a cockeral year, I got an exact 50/50. Still too many, but I have to wait to see how they grow out. I just dispatched 4 so down to the 2 mature ones from October 20. now, because it was really getting out of hand. So gone is the one I wanted to sell, the one with the faulty comb, and the two from January's mixed hatch. I'm gonna see if I can't breed out the faulty comb issue that one breeder had, with the hen. They were far the best from type. I read comb issues are best breeded out using a cock with a good comb, the other way around with a hen is rarely successful.

Good for you! Last year was a lot better for me... This year... oh boy! I got lots of bad combs in my second hatch which also more roosters than hens.
Good luck with your comb issue. What you can do is use your best rooster and breed him with his daughters and see what happens with the combs.

 

[Erba]

Yes, that was my plan, remove all the offspring with the defect comb and mate the best back to the father. Then I will see if I've managed to rectify the issue. It's hard to believe the Breeder doesn't know it is not good, and is perpetuating it, in his own flock. But maybe he doesn't even know it's a flaw?

 

[abpatchy]

Yes, that was my plan, remove all the offspring with the defect comb and mate the best back to the father. Then I will see if I've managed to rectify the issue. It's hard to believe the Breeder doesn't know it is not good, and is perpetuating it, in his own flock. But maybe he doesn't even know it's a flaw?

Well, no. Even if you have breeders with perfect combs you will always get some that have bad combs. As a matter of fact most of them will have a comb that is not good enough for show and breeding. You breed lots of chicks and then pick and you sell off the bad ones to backyard keepers. Roosters you butcher.
On the other hand it depends if that breeder was a breeder who shows his animals... or just somebody who produces chicks for money. The latter probably doesn't care.
If it were that easy to produce good looking animals all those breeders wouldn't hatch hundreds of chicks. I am really a small fry with my numbers.
But watching out for stuff like that is definitly a good way to breed.

 

[LoreWalker]

My chicks are growing fast! However, they all seem to have manure balls on their toes. I kept them on newspapers, which I replaced twice a day, but that clearly wasn't often enough (I did it just before work and right after getting home, but that's about 10 hours in between) I put them on pine shavings today, which I can hopefully just scoop out with a litterbox scooper regularly. In the meantime, they're greatly enjoying scratching around in it, it seems

I'm gonna read up on safe ways to remove the manure balls, but any tips you guys might have would be appreciated!