Progeny from heroic rooster

[sakerobot]

Two developments today:

1. Aristotle has officially started crowing. We know that he has never crown before, as his song is particularly distinguishable by being comprised of only one syllable.

2. In the evening, two more Arthlets migrated to the big coop:

This appears to be Alcibiades with a DE style pullet.

The next coop's over-engineered base is ready, at 12x8. Once we finish this we will lock the small coop to force migration.

The pullets from the first batch will be 16 weeks on Tuesday, opening the window for when they might start laying eggs.

We're trying to plan for adding some more pullets this summer, who would start in the small coop once the nights are >50F.

Later the small coop might be designated to broody hens.

 

[sakerobot]

If trying to determine the precise parentage of a bird, as in which BR mother is of which rooster, are there tests that can offer enough detail on each bird's DNA to be able to match that? There are kits that are for sexing and for determining presence of the dilute gene and such, but is there anything this specific available for chickens?

 

[NatJ]

If trying to determine the precise parentage of a bird, as in which BR mother is of which rooster, are there tests that can offer enough detail on each bird's DNA to be able to match that? There are kits that are for sexing and for determining presence of the dilute gene and such, but is there anything this specific available for chickens?

Not that I've heard of.

But if it does exist, I would also like to know!

 

[sakerobot]

These were from last week, May 29th.

Ares - still the main rooster, very likable personality. He's already calmed down on mating and does a great job at flock cohesion and discipline. Some hens, (Tsunade and BC) clean his face caringly.

Apollo, the other most active crower. He has by far the greatest dancing ambition.

Adonis with his heavy metal / action hero hair. He's been sleeping in the big coop (with Ares and a BR pullet).

Alcibiades, who has started to crow and has been doing so regularly.

Aristophanes:

And the statesman Aristotle volunteered his likeness many times that day:

A pullet eying the camera:

Some pullets have been sitting in the nest boxes at times, but still waiting for one of their eggs AFAIK. The pullets have been reaching maturity and getting mated, which brings me to my next post...

 

[sakerobot]

So, here are some future ladies for improving the flock ratio.

Three are Partridge Chanteclers.
Two are Blue Olive Eggers.
One Rhode Island Red.

We plan to add a couple more batches over the next two weeks, for a flock total of 45.

 

[sakerobot]

Over the weekend we decided to try closing the small coop and seeing if all the birds will go into the big 8x8 coop, as many of them had been spending nights there. It worked, and now they sleep as one flock. Now there's no need to worry about them running out of space until the next 8x12 coop is finished.

Now the 4x4 can be used for the younger chicks. We can run the electric heating plate to it again, and with temperatures at night being around 50 they can start being outside much sooner.

The ones that likely hatched on 6/4 are doing great and have been moved to the basement brooder. We're picking up the next batch of chicks Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

[sakerobot]

The next batch is here:

They are:

2 Buff Brahmas
2 Buff Chanteclers
2 Columbian Wyandottes
2 Salmon Faveroles

These are good breeds for our weather, and in the future it will be interesting to let some of them breed with the roosters. We would be looking mostly at health as the first criteria, with egg production being pretty low on the list. There's definitely a noticeable "healthy" aspect in how hatchery chicks grow vs ones we hatched with different breed parents. The hatchery chicks are all fine, but Arthur's children grew a bit faster.