@Ted Brown - 100% agree with you that BYC is an amazing place with lots of friendly and resourceful people who help us with good advice and have threads on everything concerning chickens. Their reviews, inputs and comments are what made me discover the Chantecler - I had no idea my own province had created a patrimonial chicken, what with the local farms all using commercial hens and broilers for egg and meat production. When I saw one for the time (after literally touring Quebec and knocking on people's doors asking what kind of poultry they kept in their backyards, as I was having no luck finding any on the web) I was smitten though.
Most breeders in my area keep 2-3 roosters, the top best for breeding and the 2nd and 3rd as back-up (in case the 1rst dies or proves infertile). Some use their second and third roosters in breeding pens with hens from different races to make crossbred offsprings (like Easter Eggers). Sometimes the lines are crossed in an attempt to get chicks that are both productive and show-quality (which ones are yours?). It's the same thing with hens - the best ones are kept for breeding, the culled ones (provided they are not sick or contain a grave physical flaw) are kept for crossbred chicks & eggs rather than cooked. I understand, though, that not everyone has the space required for such decisions, so those who spare their chickens are few and far between.
Runtacler would have been lonely if alone in a segregation pen. Chickens are social animals, so if you isolate one make sure they have at least 1 other bird to interact with - provided, of course, that they are not sick or aggressive. A cage or small pen inside the main coop where the healthy flock and wounded bird can see each other and interact through the fence is usually sufficient to keep the loneliness at bay.
(Another option is to bring your isolated bird inside your house, and be that one person the chicken interacts with. Be careful though - you might get incredibly attached to it, and your chicken can get incredibly attached to you in return. Kind of like
him. Or
that guy. )
Your Chanteclers sound like their foraging abilities are not as strong as your BCM mixes, that can be refined with time and experience as they grow older. If you want foraging birds, breed those that venture out onto pasture instead of hanging around the feeders. Also, if you ever need help translating english into french or vice-versa, tell me. I can speak both french and english, so I should not have too much trouble with communications, unless you send me words I have never seen before
My own research on the internet on various sites has yielded that pullet-hatched chicks will not be as strong or performant as hen-hatched chicks. Chickens under 2 years old who are used as breeding parents lend their offsprings an immature immune system, as they are still immature themselves. This leaves their chicks weaker and more vulnerable to problems, and gets them culled faster than hen-hatched chicks. Also, people have noted a smaller hatching rate with pullet eggs than with hen eggs, as pullet eggshells are thicker than hen eggshells, making it harder for the chick to break out. I do not know how many pullet and hens eggs you had in your 62 Chantecler eggs back in spring, but one of the potential causes behind your low hatching rate might be thick pullet eggshells. Do you still have your notes about which were which?
I'm very happy to see you starting a breeding program with Chanteclers in a wood-style coop. I've been wondering about Chanteclers in woods-style coops for a solid year now, surprisingly there is little record to be found of people who have tried it in Quebec. You doing it in Ontario is a blessing; thank you for taking the plunge and recording your experiences on BYC!
The more pens the better, especially if you want to keep multiple breeding roosters. Personally I refer to
this breeding coop whenever I find someone who wants to keep several breeding pairs and trios. If your wood-style coop is a success with your Chanteclers, you could also build a large wood-style coop that is split in six mini-coops, to house your breeding pairs/trios like in the link above, instead of making several coops to house each breeding pair/trio. Much less materials used that way, though the choice is up to you.
The Hungarian Yellows are beautiful birds... Unfortunately they would get frostbite here, so I can't order them up here. The only birds immune to this problem are the Chanteclers, Russian Orloffs, Buckeyes, Ameraucanas and Hedemoras, at least those with pea combs if people have them. (Note: all the birds I mentioned are endangered, some critical, except for the Ameraucana which is quite popular.)
I don't know how much you've researched chicken breeding, but I believe
this link will help you narrow down the selection of your birds ^^
I wish you good luck with bee keeping, hopefully they will not sting you as you go around collecting their honey
