Well, enjoy your break from them! I've heard that roosters start loosing fertility around 3 years of age, sort of like how hens tend to lay fewer eggs at that point as well, so maybe they'll cycle them out to keep more fertile roosters around. No guarantee that those roosters will be any less aggressive, of course, but you can always hope, right?
The boys will get the same consideration as any of the cockerels I raise out. They may be tiny (seriously, the almost 2-week-olds are bigger than them at 5 weeks old
), but I will not tolerate aggression in my roosters. If they're well behaved and don't attack me or my hens, they can stay. They'll probably go into the main flock rather than be kept in a rooster flock, though, as I can't imagine Reuby, Winter, or the big hens will have any problems with them.
On the topic, I went ahead and tried out letting them mingle together today, which went about as well as I expected. Achernar and Toliman were absolute buttheads toward the babies, and Rigel attacked them when I held Acher and Toli to keep them away. So, the three boys went to the baby bin while the girls and babies interacted in the big brooder. To my surprise, Altair started getting aggressive toward the babies, too, and I had to hold her part of the time so she wasn't pecking and kicking them!
Vega, on the other hand, was an absolute doll. Mingling with them, poking curiously at them sometimes, but never attacking or pecking hard, and she even ate with them at their feeder without issue. I'm really starting to adore this sweet girl!
Here are a few cell phone pictures of the experience. Here's Brownie-bite checking out the new space (and freezing in horror at what she saw
)
Vega and Altair headed into the babies' space, which led to some confusion about what to do now that there wasn't a fence between them. (Yes, those babies filled their waterer with bedding.
)
Vega being a sweetie
That face! (Altair is next to the EcoGlow by G1 (Tankie)).
And, after I had to pull Altair for being a meanie, here's Vega with some of the babies, eating.
The babies noticed my phone.
Two things I noticed today with them. First, like I said before, those 5-week-olds are just a bit smaller than the 2-weekers.
Well, the large fowl ones, anyway, because the EE bantams are smaller.
And second, well, I thought Tank was a tank... But I picked up both B2 and G2 to switch their leg bands out, and found that G2 is also a bit of a chunk! I think it's just Cressida's influence on their genes. She is quite a bit bigger than Maggie, who's B2's mother. Just thought that was interesting.
The Silkie mixes are also starting to get some interesting markings in their newly-sprouting shoulder feathers, rather than coming in just white. Can't wait to see how they feather out--I just hope that at least one of them is a pullet!!
The girls seem pretty gentle with them through the fence, so I think they'll be okay with them. Maybe I'll just separate the boys out while I'm not in the room so that the babies can start integrating together without me having to worry about them.
So, here are their individual pictures! Starting with the Easter Hatch-a-long babies, here is B2:
