Temporary Roosters???

[rulucky]

I've been raising chickens for almost a year now. What started as a small hobby has grown rapidly. I started with six laying hens I bought locally. Now I have another fourteen hens I purchased from Meyer hatchery, and ten red broilers I purchased from Ideal. I am now working on building a cabinet incubator to start hatching my own eggs. I have friends who have large free range flocks including many different breed roosters. My question is this for all you much more experienced breeders out there...Is it possible for me to bring in a rooster from a friends flock temporarily for the fertilization of my own hens eggs for a couple months at a time. What I was thinking is building sort of a breeding pen and taking for instance my four RIR hens and place them in the breeding pen for a cpl weeks alone for them to get used to it and then bring in the rooster of the same breed for a month or so to ensure pure bred RIR chicks. Then after hatching what I want of those, give his rooster back and repeat the process with my buff orpingtons and another buff orpington rooster he has. The reason I was thinking of this is to only have one breeding pen and one pen for my mixed flock instead of different pens for each breed and then having a roo for each breed. I guess sort of like a breeding program like u would do with dogs..(I have the females, u have the stud and we split the litter sort of thing). I'm sure I would have to do some sort of quarantine period for bringing in the roos. I would just like to be able to hatch eggs of pure bred chicks and Im not too interested in having too many roos b/c of the fact that I have a five year old son who loves to play and help me work in the coops. Any pros and cons to this idea would be helpful and greatly appreciated...Thanks.

 

[HEChicken]

A big con is disease. It is recommended to quarantine any new bird you bring in for 30 days before adding to your flock. So if you are bringing roosters in and out all the time, you either run the risk of introducing disease to any he is in contact with if you don't quarantine, but will expend a huge amount of time (and stress for the rooster being kept in solitary confinement for 30 days) if you do quarantine. You might be better off having 2-3 roosters of your own. When you want to breed specific breeds, segregate your rooster of choice with your hens of choice into your breeding pen, then collect and hatch only those eggs. When you're ready for a change, send that group back to the main flock, and repeat with another rooster and set of hens.

 

[rulucky]

The more I read and think about it, I dont think I want to take the chance bringing in other birds to my flock. I think your right about the quarantine...the time and stress it would take is just not worth it. I think I'll just end up raising my own roosters from chicks to ensure they are not aggressive towards me and my boys and introduce them to my flock the right way. When I decide I want more chicks that are pure bred I will just seperate them within the large coop I already have. Thanks for the advice...