Show birds together??

[ChickenMitch]

I am in 4H and am just starting to show chickens. I have 14 show chickens total, I have a pair of Belgium Bearded D'uccles, a pair of Salmon Faverollies, a pair of Old English white bantams, 3hens/1roo Wyandottes and 1hen/3roos black d'uccles. My question is can I have them all in the same coop or should I keep them seperated by breed?

 

[peepsnbunnies]

If you keep them all in the same coop together, you will get some mixed breed chicks if you let the hens brood and hatch the eggs. If part of your 4-H project is raising and selling the chicks, you may want to think about seperate pens to keep the breeds pure. Maybe you can pick out what breed you want to keep pure and just seperate out those chickens. If you are not going to sell chicks and just show your birds, you can keep all the breeds together if they will get along well.

 

[Matt A NC]

You can put the girls together but not the Roos. If they fight you can get damaged combs. Not to mention that the roos can kill each other.

If you are planning on showing them before they molt again then you need to have the girls away from the boys anyways. The Roosters will mess up their back feathers and the patch on the back of their head.

Once the hens/pullets molt you will need to keep them away from the Roosters for this reason.

I have a beautiful Standard Cochin hen that I was going to take to a show this past spring. A week before hand someone let the cockerels out of the grow-out pen. They destroyed her tail and back feathers. She stayed home.

Matt