Silkie thread!

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PsycoPeep said:
The blood ring photo is too small to accurately guage what I'm looking at. But I have seen a few of my eggs that "I" would call a blood ring, so I started throwing any of those out. But then I saw movement in one of them and kept it just in case. So that's why I'm confused.
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ABout how many days of incubation is it? Can you take a photo of it being candled?
 
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I have a few questions concerning roos. I have a lot of them. Up to seven. Two are confirmed and three more look and act like roosters, so I don't expect to be seeing any eggs from them in future. So we'll say five to seven roosters. That leaves 22 to 26 pullets. I have a mixed coop of bantams and large fowl. All the large fowl (22 of them) are pullets. I don't have any problems with the large fowl bullying the bantams. I have one bantam cochin roo, the rest silkies. All the silkies and cochins are around three to four months old, the large fowl pullets are just over five months old. So, the roosters are still rather low on the pecking order. Now for the questions ... Is this too many roos for my flock? I've read that the flock will be fine with this many roosters as long as they grew up together and have space to get away from each other. I've also heard that it's too many for a small flock and they'll overbreed the hens. Will large fowl pullets accept bantam roosters as mates? They sure don't show them any respect right now -- they either ignore them or occasionally peck at them when the roos have something they want. But right now I have five or six pullets laying and no roosters who are near ready to start romancing the ladies. If this is an okay set up, how do roosters work this out? I know with a couple of roosters you get a dominant and submissive rooster, but is alpha possible here? How's the alpha going to keep six other males in line? He's going to have to be one very alert rooster. Or am I going to see little harems form? The male cochin already has a little flock of his own going consisting of the two cochin pullets, a suspected male silkie and an unknown silkie that I'm hoping is female. I don't know why the cochin wants the suspected male in his flock, but he chases him back to the others if the male silkie strays too far.

Or as I suspect is none of this going to work and I'm going to have to build the boys their own bachelor pad? They're pets, so they're not going anywhere, except maybe to new digs.

If temperments matter, so far nobody's acting overly mean or aggressive. The confirmed silkie roo has started asserting himself against the lower ranked hens. If they peck him, he pecks back and most times the pullets back down. There's a bit of sparring between the boys, but no serious fights. They mostly stare each other down until one charges towards the other, chasing him away. Occasionally they'll fly feet first at each other, but the loser backs down quickly.
 
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How much room do they have? I have 6/7 roos both LF and bantam and they coexist just fine. They sleep in the barn at night and free range during the day going their separate ways.
 
Yep, space is the most important factor. The more he better. Mine have grown up together and most of the time they are great mates. Every now and then there will be a scrap up.
I have a sin bin, for any repeat offenders.
 

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