Ideally, yes, you only want 1 roo per breeding pen... but also ideally you want several different pens for a single type of purebred stock... whether you are breeding separate lines or trying to pin down issues or hens who throw better quality, etc... but that's not practical for most on here, and I know SC can't do that due to prior established birds... so you work with what you can... plus, his are Am's and from ggod lines, so they won't need as intense work as others might...I had no idea. Really! I was just trying to catch up and then I was like...I guess I'm thinking of Marans where you might have only one roo that you want breeding so that you know what to fix if things aren't working out. I guess with a lot of breeds it wouldn't matter as much.
So for now, why not keep all the boys you want to keep together? Blacks and blue... but have an option of removing the blue boy to elsewhere (like for OE's) if they become to scrappy or overbreed? Can't hurt to try it for a while to see and since they're still young it's best to try before the hormones kick into high gear... another tip I found works well is to keep some older hens in with them to teach them good manners... hens that don't put up with any s**t, but aren't bullies either...Fits and spurts On a normal day, it's hopping from around 9 until lunch. It slows considerably until 3 or 4, then picks up again in the afternoons. My busy periods change from day to day, so sometimes I will just be in here stirring the pot. The 75% for lockdown that I think you are referring to is the parade percentage. There's a certain guy on this thread, awesome guy, that will throw parades after hatches, but certain criteria have to be met. From lockdown, if you hatch 75% of shipped eggs you get a parade, but the number is 85% for your own eggs. And just to pacify that crybaby Ravyn, the percentage has been dropped to 50% for eggs that are shipped to a part of the world where another language is spoken Speak of the devil
I've had some that just aren't very bright... my BCM roo got into the Silkie pen and they whomped on him... found him hiding in their coop... didn't matter that he was so big all he had to do was step on them, but he's not a real manly man... :/ Color chart only really works if the colors aren't mixed to begin with... mixing black splits with blues and splashes can cause some weird results down the line as well... that's one of the reasons I dropped BBS and am staying with black splits and Lavs...
