Question About Breeding Chickens

[FeatheredFriends1]

I am located in La Vernia, Texas, very near San Antonio, Texas. I've been looking for a Leghorn rooster for FOREVER and had just about given up. I was going to try to buy the little bantam 'cause he was the closest thing to a Leghorn rooster I could get but I am not even sure if I can get him now.

 

[leghorn dude]

wow i was at chickenstock in san marcos yesterday i live just north of houston

 

[FeatheredFriends1]

It takes me about 20-30 minutes to get to the San Marcos area.

I know this is probably a silly question but what is a chicken stock???? I have never heard of anything like that but it sounds neat.

Well it looks as if I wont be getting the little banty rooster.
It might be better that way though 'cause he was going to have to be shipped to me and with it being so hot down here I'm afraid he might have heat stroked!

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

I contacted a couple hatcherys and they said that Bantam chickens can NOT be bred with Standard chickens. So your saying that they can? That is interesting.

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

Quote:
SundownWaterfowl, i`m not sure why a hatchery would tell you that but it happens all of the time, some times on purpose
and sometimes by accident. 3 years ago i had a Hatch game rooster {around 5 lbs.} free ranging with a few of his hens, and 2 or 3 of my Old English bantam hens {around 22 ozs} escaped and ran with the flock, by the end of summer i had about 20 crosses running around. they ended up about the size of American game bantams in the 2.5 to 3 lb range. yf egh

Very interesting. Can a bantam rooster, fertilize eggs from a standard hen. I have a Silver Sebright rooster and I was wondering if he could fertilize eggs from a Deleware or Barred Rock hen?

 

[jimnjay]

Sebrights are pretty small but if the little guy is agile enough he can fertilize a standard hen. I had my Little Silkie Rooster with a SL Wyandote, Partridge Rock and a Rhode Island Red and I hatched fertile eggs from each of them.

 

[leghorn dude]

heres the link to what it was but basically a bunch of people getting together talking about chickens eating and having fun https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=30179

 

[Marlinchaser]

Quote:
The answer to your question is NO you cant ethically call them pure bred leghorns(they are not suitable to either standard). Same as if you breed a minipinscher with a doberman pincsher, you can call it a pincher, but NO you can not get any type of registration for it. You would have to sell your chicks as MUTTS (nothing wrong with mutts, but you should let the buyer know what they are really getting.) of a bamtam X Standard cross.

 

[FeatheredFriends1]

Well since I wouldn't be able to sell the chicks as pure Leghorns then I wont purchase the bantam rooster. That was a pretty big deal because I am trying to start a business selling chickens and I need birds that are purebred. Most of my buyers want pure Leghorns and not mutt chickens!

I have had a chicks from a standard rooster and a bantam cochin hen once so I know it is possible for a bantam standard cross but the offspring were obviously not purebred. However these crosses became some of my best layers!

 

[dacjohns]

I've seen the standard rooster mount the bantam hens. Bantam rooster has mounted the standard hens.

I'm not saying that any attempts were successful but the bantam rooster hides a lot from the big rooster so I suspect that most of the eggs were from the standard rooster's attempts. Bantam eggs have successfully hatched but I have no idea what those mutts are.

I really don't see how the hatchery can say bantams can't be bred with standards. They are the same species which means they can breed (except in the case of subspecies with barriers to breeding which is a biology course in itself). Hatcheries probably don't want you to breed your own birds anyway because they will be loosing business.