- Dec 5, 2014
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Chicken math does take over. I have decent sized laying pen for eating eggs that is gaining some more birds to keep up with demand and personal consumption. I have a very large barn style coop with attached run that holds several birds, but now that they are coming to POL, I am moving 8+ to the smaller coop, and 9 to the coop I am building now. The largest coop is going to be for the BCM's. I am getting in 15 female chicks in a little over a month to fill in the gap of hen to rooster ratio. My original BCM's are from the former Taylor Hobby, the others are coming from Cackle which has a really good blood line too. So, hopefully by Spring/Summer I will have the BCM's fertile eggs ready to go in gangbusters.My Yankees (delawares & new hampshires) are 17 weeks old now and have really outgrown the small coop I've got them in. It's a 6X6, so its really only comfortable for 9 full grown chickens and I've got 15 over there! Mr. Feathers & Erebel have done a great job taking over the raising of the 3 week old chicks I gave them. Erebel is a buff Orpington and goes broody 3-4 times a year, but has always crushed any eggs I've given her, so I thought I'd try giving her chicks instead. I wasn't sure how it would work, since they weren't day olds, but by the end of the first day, she was in her element being a mama hen. Heck, even now, she's still protective of the group and has not gone back to laying. Mr. Feathers has always been good with chicks.
Erebel is front and right with the asked for cockerel, Al Capone, behind her. The oops cockerel is the big white one with his head down. He's Colonel Sanders and looks like he's going to be HUGE!
This is Colonel Sanders at 17 weeks.
Last night, in the dark, I moved the 13 Yankees over to the Egg Rock Coop with all my 41 Rocks (name theme). Moved 4 of the Rocks over to the small coop to keep Mr. Feathers & Erebel company and be my possible source for incubating eggs for next spring. This morning, I went out to see how it was all going. There are two roosters in that group. Conan, who is a huge 2 year old EE rooster and juvenile Dragon, who is a smaller EE rooster. There was a little tiff between Conan and Colonel Sanders, but that was it! Dragon & Al Capone are definitely low totem boys, so they completely stayed out of everyones way and once the Colonel showed he wasn't going to challenge Conan, everything was fine. Easiest merge I think I've ever done. I really think having Erebel & Mr. Feathers raise those chicks produced some confident young chickens. The last group was isolated, then bullied and they're still, at a year, easily freaked.
I think I'll leave everyone in the coop/run for today and maybe tomorrow, to make sure the Yankees are comfortable with this being their home, then let them have the barn only for a week or so before letting them range out in the horse pastures again.
