Separating hens with rooster...

biteme2134

Songster
6 Years
Jul 21, 2013
240
14
111
GA
My Coop
My Coop
I have a mixed flock but also have 7 Ameraucana one of which is a rooster. The other 12 birds are varying breeds. I want to hatch out some pure Ameraucana so here's my plan: I have a small coop made for maybe 4 full size hens. I know the Ameraucana are smaller birds but I don't plan on leaving them there forever. So I'll leave them in there for 2 weeks to get the other roosters dna out... Then start gathering eggs for incubating.

How does this sound?
Will most of the hens be fertile in a small space like that?
And this isn't the dominant rooster so the hens are not yet submissive to him right now. How will this come into play?

Thanks!
 
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Really? Ok that's helpful! I've never segregated them for breeding reasons before so this is new territory
 
Once you remove this rooster from his current pen putting him back in will be impossible the roosters will fight. Do you plan on keeping both roosters? If not I would just leave all the birds together keep the americauna rooster and get rid of the other then after 2 or 3 weeks collect the blue/green eggs for hatching.
 
My plan is to get rid of the two roosters I have in the main pen and keep the Ameraucana. Also I'll get rid of all the other hens and just have and entire flock of Ameraucana... I just didn't want to reduce egg production and wasnt sure my old hens would accept this young rooster for hatching until my Ameraucana grow up
 
You will be surprised the difference in this rooster once you take the dominant roosters out. He will step into his role and take charge
 
good to know - i guess my main thing is I want pure hatchlings... if I keep them all together I won't have as many fertile green eggs to work with. So maybe I'll keep them separate and if the fighting starts I'll have to remove the other roosters after I get my first hatch done?
 
Keep things simple. Why not just get rid of the non Ameraucana roosters and run one flock? A young rooster should have no problem keeping up to 20 hens fertile. Just pull your Ameraucana hens eggs for hatching when you're ready. Nice thing about picking that breed, you can easily tell their eggs from other breeds.
 
Total we have 16 hens. 7 of them are Ameraucana. 3 roosters total... Ameraucana is bottom of the ladder. They were all getting along until we had a hawk kill a girl and I locked them up for a day. Once I let them out a day later my two oldest roosters were fighting... Both been together over a year and I've never seen them fight.
 

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