Stud service/Love shack VS Egglayer Disruption

[budkingston]

I can't keep a Roo... And I want fertilized eggs

So... If I built a tractor and placed it on a friends property (that has roosters), allowed my laying hens to stay there, then put a rooster in with the hens, THEN brought the hens home...

How much would the hen's egglaying capacity be reduced by disruption, or would it go back to normal by being in their home coop?

And what lkind of timeline am I looking at?

 

[chicksrcool]

I was wondering about stud service too! I would like to have some more chicks but we can't have a rooster, and it would be so neat to have my girls be the mother of them.

eta: yay, this was my 50th post, and not I'm out of the brooder!

 

[budkingston]

50th post? It says 55 on the side and that was only a few minutes ago! May your chickens be as prolific as you.

But in seriousness, it seems that I am not the only one who wants to resolve this. I had done a search and couldn't find an answer that specifically addressed this. I guess the current trend is 1) Buy fertilized eggs 2) Borrow a rooster. This is something that I don't want to try because it would require a few days, a few days to attract attention to myself...

 

[EweSheep]

If you are in the city, see what you can do to have a roo. If they are not allowed, then you can not have any. Or you can wait until the winter time when everyone's windows are closed up.

As for being stud service to a friend, make sure the tractor does not have any lice, mites or anything that has been used before, dust it down and bleach it out. Or brand new tractor. Best solution I see is to isolate the friend's roo from her own flock for at least a month before you introduce your girls to him. Then the girls can go to him for a month or two as long they are laying. Do not stress them out too much by moving and transporting too much from your friends farm to yours and back and forth. When are getting your girls back from your friends, if you have any other hens in the flock, you must isolate the serviced girls from your flock for one month, they will be laying if they are not stressed out too much. By that time, your fertile eggs during that isolation time would be the ones you want to collect. After three to four weeks, fertility drops almost to nothing. It is the strongest possibly that your hens might just quit laying altogether due to the stress of moving, new enivorments, etc.

As for me, I would have a roo from mid Oct orNovember all the way to late spring around end of March to April depending how warm it got. All that time, I would get roughly about two months of fertile eggs, enough for me to keep some and sell some. This suggestion is the best for me so I do not lose too much time if the hens are stressed out but not so much of moving away from their own home. Roosters settle in quicker than hens and they would do the job right then and there if the hens are willing already. This method works for me and my nosy neighbors and I am smacked dab in the middle of the city.

The roo I ended up are getting good homes or sold or for meat. Many of the 4Hers love to have some of my roosters that I can not keep. I also have a friend on a farm outside of town that is really good about boarding my chickens away from her flock in a horse barn that no chickens are allowed and in a big cage for isolation.