Sumatra Thread!

[raph]

What age would a sumatra cockerel become sterile at, because I have a sumatra cockerel who must be about 4 or 5.and the last two hatches from him and a hen about 3 or 4 years old was terrible. Granted the eggs were travelled to a friends house for hatching and it was blackberry season, but I would of expected a better hatch rate.out of 10 eggs I got 1 and from another 8 eggs I got 3 chicks. Would it be my bad timing or would age be the problem?

 

[ramirezframing]

Our weird sumatra hen that is always underfoot never produced any fertile eggs until this spring. She is 5-6 years old or so and always hated other chickens. She was running loose in the shed with an overly sweet bantam leghorn rooster. We stuck some eggs in the incubator just to see, sure enough there are 5 chicks from her and him. Now that she is out with the other birds, she hasn't produced any more fertile eggs.

She found her Romeo and she aint cheating on him

 

[ramirezframing]

What age would a sumatra cockerel become sterile at, because I have a sumatra cockerel who must be about 4 or 5.and the last two hatches from him and a hen about 3 or 4 years old was terrible. Granted the eggs were travelled to a friends house for hatching and it was blackberry season, but I would of expected a better hatch rate.out of 10 eggs I got 1 and from another 8 eggs I got 3 chicks. Would it be my bad timing or would age be the problem?

I wouldn't think it was age, how many hens are with him? My dad had a 10yr old rooster that was still producing chicks, but my dad had to cut him down to just his favorite few hens, as the non favorites weren't getting serviced.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

She found her Romeo and she aint cheating on him 

Pretty much! The rooster passed away, otherwise they would still be together.

 

[ramirezframing]

Quote: That sucks.

 

[ST3PH3N]

What age would a sumatra cockerel become sterile at, because I have a sumatra cockerel who must be about 4 or 5.and the last two hatches from him and a hen about 3 or 4 years old was terrible. Granted the eggs were travelled to a friends house for hatching and it was blackberry season, but I would of expected a better hatch rate.out of 10 eggs I got 1 and from another 8 eggs I got 3 chicks. Would it be my bad timing or would age be the problem?

I wouldn't think it was age, how many hens are with him? My dad had a 10yr old rooster that was still producing chicks, but my dad had to cut him down to just his favorite few hens, as the non favorites weren't getting serviced.

I have 5 or 6 black sumatra hens that I am hatching eggs from that are more than 10 years old, no problem there. They just lay fewer eggs each season. My oldest black sumatra rooster died at age 12 and he was fertile up until he began going downhill at the end there. He never had a problem with too many hens, lol, it was the young roosters that eventually dethroned him.

-Stephen

 

[championsumatra]

Wow know that I look at how many years I have been showing it has been 9 years.

 

[raph]

I guess That my cockerel should do a bit longer. But I am going to try and breed another breeding cockerel from him. What's the weather like over with all of you?
Over here it has been raining, it's been windy and miserable.
And the other week we had 2 Cleveland bay foals, of which one was turned out with his mum for the first time today.

 

[ramirezframing]

Congrats on the foals. My area has been wet or warm (80's), next week is suppose to be rainy all week from what a friend says. We'll see, I hope it's not all week.

 

[4Hgirl]

I have hatched eggs off of a 10 year old lakenvelder before, so I don't think her age is the problem. I could be wrong though on that. Last year when you hatched her eggs, were they in a pen where now they are free ranged or was it a different rooster?

Thank you to everyone with advice and moral support! Last year I did have them in a own when I first got the rooster just until I felt confident he would not run away
Then they were free range as he was the only rooster. This year they have been free range the whole time. Both of them don't do well caged. They pace and squawk a lot watching all the other free range birds.