Raising More than 1 breed of chicken

[royturkcross]

I have a few different breeds of chickens. I am wanting to build each rooster their own area and have the hens in a community area. Can I put a hen or 2 or more in with a rooster, let them breed, and then put the hens back into the community area? Or am I going to have issues with fighting and such? I like my different breeds and want to keep their offspring pure but due to cold winters having all the hens would be easier. Or if anyone has any suggestions that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading

 

[BunkyB]

Go for it. I also dabble in breeding purebred birds with another pure breed. You can have up to 5 hens with the rooster. If the hens get along in the community area they will get along penned up with a roo. They should anyway. Just give them a week with roo and see what happens..

Of course your rooster may have a favorite hen as well. Just look for the missing head and back feathers... Steve

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Sure, this will work. Your hens that are fertilized with the roo will remain fertile for at least two weeks, so you can even put them back into your all-hen flock and continue to have fertile eggs for a while.

 

[Eggcessive]

You can keep them all together including the roosters for most of the year if you want. Then when you want to breed them, just separate the breeding pairs or 1 roo with however many hens in a pen for 2weeks till you have the eggs you need, and you will have purebreds. Most hens will be fertile with that roo in 1-2 days, and can lay fertile eggs for 1-3 weeks after being with that roo. It is just simpler to keep them all together the rest of the year unless the 2 roos fight.

 

[royturkcross]

Thank you for your replys. Very helpful.
That would be the easiest way for sure, especially during the winter!!

Keeping them all together except when I need the pure eggs. I do have more than 2 roo's though. So, just wondering if I possibly could put more roos than 2 in or am I asking for guaranteed fighting? When I take a few out to put in breeding pens and then reintroduce them back into the flock, am I going to have fighting issues? Since I can get away with 2 roos in each pen I might just make 2 main area pens. Keeping only the larger breeds in 1 and smaller breeds in another.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

You can keep them all together including the roosters for most of the year if you want. Then when you want to breed them, just separate the breeding pairs or 1 roo with however many hens in a pen for 2weeks till you have the eggs you need, and you will have purebreds. Most hens will be fertile with that roo in 1-2 days, and can lay fertile eggs for 1-3 weeks after being with that roo. It is just simpler to keep them all together the rest of the year unless the 2 roos fight.

I just want to clarify the above--if you have your flock mixed (the way I do now, all the birds together) you have to separate the breeding hens from the undesirable roosters for a minimum of two weeks before you are certain that the sperm from the other roosters is out of her and you are certain of who the daddy is. Many people, me included, separate the birds for three weeks, just to make sure. You can do that by either separating out the roosters into a bachelor pen (depending on how they get along) or by separating the hens you want to breed and the rooster you want to breed them to into a pen by themselves for two-three weeks. If you've taken all the roosters out of the flock until you see that the eggs aren't fertile any more, then it will only take 1-2 days of having a rooster in with those hens before the eggs are fertile again.



Quote:
You can have lots of roosters if you have lots of hens. You need 8-10 hens per rooster to really have enough girls.

If you are changing flocks around all the time, moving hens and roosters, you'll have to expect fighting between hens and fighting between roosters with every move. That's just basic chicken behavior, their pecking order changes when you introduce new individuals (or birds that have been gone for a few days) into the flock.