I'm relatively new to chicken keeping (2 years), and this year we decided to see if we could breed one of our girls. Josephine is a 2-yr old Speckled Sussex who periodically goes broody. When our girl Goldie was killed a couple of months ago by a raccoon, we decided we'd get a rooster and see if we could get some more babies. Our main reason really, is pure curiosity. I'd read that Sussex are a more rare breed, and my 10-yr old daughter is keen on the idea as well.
So, we bought Skippy, an 8 month old Speckled Sussex rooster from a gal who had too many roosters. Poor Skippy was being picked on by the dom rooster and has a lazy eye. Other than that he seems very healthy.
We introduce he and Josephine very slowly, and for the lasty couple of weeks they've been co-habitating in our "love shack" quite nicely. He's obsessed her with, she tolerates him.
We've seen him do this odd little skipping dance around her (and the other hens when they all mingle during supervised outtings) which is why we named him Skippy. Is that normal? We've seen him attempt many mountings, but haven't witnessed anything that looks like real mating.
Aside from making sure she gets breeder rations, appropriate housing and water and all, is there anything else we can do to help our experiment have positive outcomes, ie: little baby Sussexes?
So, we bought Skippy, an 8 month old Speckled Sussex rooster from a gal who had too many roosters. Poor Skippy was being picked on by the dom rooster and has a lazy eye. Other than that he seems very healthy.
We introduce he and Josephine very slowly, and for the lasty couple of weeks they've been co-habitating in our "love shack" quite nicely. He's obsessed her with, she tolerates him.
We've seen him do this odd little skipping dance around her (and the other hens when they all mingle during supervised outtings) which is why we named him Skippy. Is that normal? We've seen him attempt many mountings, but haven't witnessed anything that looks like real mating.
Aside from making sure she gets breeder rations, appropriate housing and water and all, is there anything else we can do to help our experiment have positive outcomes, ie: little baby Sussexes?
