Picky Rooster...

[silkie1472]

I have 5 silkies: 4 hens and 1 roo. The rooster is a white silkie as are two of the hens. They were raised together for eight months before any other chickens were added. Soon after the white silkies began mating and laying, I received two more silkies: a black hen and a gray hen. However, they have been together for 5 months now, and the rooster does not even attempt to mate with them. I don't know if that is his personal preference, or if there is an actual reason he doesn't mate with them. At first I thought that they just mated when I was not around, but I have tried incubating their eggs twice now and there are still no fertile eggs. He mates non-stop with the white hens all day long, but the black and gray one are ignored.

Is there any way that I can get these chickens mating with each other?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

It is not at all uncommon for a rooster to have favorite hens -- often leading to relentless mating of some and absolute ignoring of others. One thing you could try is setting up two separate enclosures (breeding pens) and house the rooster and the non-favored hens together while housing the favorites in the other pen. If the favorites are unavailable it can help to bring the others into his consideration.

 

[silkie1472]

Okay, thanks for the idea. One of the hens is broody and out of his reach. This leaves the other white hen as a target for him...poor thing... I would think that this would make him want to mate with the other hens, but I will definitely try this out.