The 8th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!!!!

[ronott1]

Okay, that explains why the eggs from my free range flock aren't fertile. That means most of my HAL eggs won't be hatching. Out of the 26 eggs that I set for the HAL, 16 of them are from my free range flock, 3 of them are from my young Silver Laced Orpington pen and 7 are from my young Lemon/Buff Orpington pen. The lemon rooster will be the replacement for my older rooster. I tried letting the lemon rooster out to free range for a couple of weeks, but he likes to pick fights with my older rooster. All of my chickens get layer feed and kitchen scraps. What can I do for the older rooster to make sure he doesn't get too much calcium? Maybe I need to set up a Senior pen for my older chickens? Do the older girls need less calcium too?

Feed them a flock raiser and give them free choice oyster shell calcium.

Also something like calf manna.

All is not lost though. Fertility goes up in the spring so the next hatch may be much better

 

[ShrekDawg]

I have several roosters...but I don't have any that age yet. :/   On second though...I have two in my original package that were old when I got them. They must be 3.5 + years old. The white one has offspring I believe...the other guy I haven't bred this year yet.

Depending on the rooster, they can crow at any time of the day or night. It's 2am...and it's not uncommon to hear a few of mine crowing. I think having more than one causes more crowing because they have competition. I have some that don't crow much. It's a good thing our closest neighbor is 1.5 miles away.

[COLOR=0000FF]We put ours inside our garage every night, so no one can hear them - including us!  Crow collars also work to muffle the daytime crowing.  Thankfully ours are pretty quiet.  Only a few crows around 8am when I 1st put them out.  If I hear any crowing at other times it's because there's something wrong like a predator or a neighbor's scary new power tool.  They really don't like it when people do backyard home improvement projects. LOL[/COLOR]

That's a bummer.

The color-genetics-thread, hasn't had too much activity recently tho. If your hen is blue then the babies will have a 50% chance of being blue, if she is splash then all the babies will be blue. Should have some gold leakage in their feathers also.


We've had roosters in the past that had "crowing competitions" all night long with coyotes  I think they thought they were other roosters  

Oh my...

Ours do that but in the morning. Pretty fun I'm waiting for them to call one in so I can shoot It! Lol

There are 6 roosters around my house (4 are mine, then 2 are the neighbors that come in my yard). I've never been woken by crowing. They crow randomly and have competitions but I don't hear it when I'm in bed and I don't usually hear it in the house either.

Many of my neighbors have livestock, including roosters, so listening to crowing comes with the territory. I actually like listening to the roosters compete in their own version of The Voice. 

I have gotten used to the crowing of my roosters all but one and it's so odd a crow I can't get used to it

Thanks for all the info everybody! Hopefully with only one rooster they wouldn't crow too badly. We have close neighbors in the back so that's why I was more concerned. But then again, the dog is probably louder LOL

But speaking of the dog, that's my other concern. He's kind of a brat and just barks sometimes or like if he sees/hears something so I'm worried that even if I can't hear the rooster, he might and would start barking in the night and he'd wake us up not the rooster hah

 

[BantyChooks]

Many of my neighbors have livestock, including roosters, so listening to crowing comes with the territory. I actually like listening to the roosters compete in their own version of The Voice. 

Ditto. It's fun listening to crows echoing back and forth from farm to farm like a volley of vocal arrows.... You can hear in their voices the challenges they're sending.

 

[Jessimom]

Ditto. It's fun listening to crows echoing back and forth from farm to farm like a volley of vocal arrows.... You can hear in their voices the challenges they're sending.

It's funny, I love the sounds of roosters. The hoarding neighbor has 7 or 8 yappy dogs that ARE ALWAYS barking. They are WAY more annoying than any rooster. But, roosters are BANNED in my entire city. Even the animal overlay areas - which allows farm animals, are not allowed to have roosters.

I hatch a LOT of eggs. I end up with a LOT of baby roosters. I have had to drop them at the animal shelter, because the feed stores will only take so many. I currently have 2 that are crowing, both have no crow collars, but they don't help that much on silkies....The Ayam Cemani is a lot quieter. Both are inside - 24x7. My Nov/Dec hatched chicks are JUST starting to crow. I have those listed all over the place trying to find takers.

I would LOVE to fight the city to allow ONE rooster. But others have tried, and failed. Again, there are dogs in the neighborhood that are much louder. Stupid rules....

 

[ronott1]

It's funny, I love the sounds of roosters. The hoarding neighbor has 7 or 8 yappy dogs that ARE ALWAYS barking. They are WAY more annoying than any rooster. But, roosters are BANNED in my entire city. Even the animal overlay areas - which allows farm animals, are not allowed to have roosters.

I hatch a LOT of eggs. I end up with a LOT of baby roosters. I have had to drop them at the animal shelter, because the feed stores will only take so many. I currently have 2 that are crowing, both have no crow collars, but they don't help that much on silkies....The Ayam Cemani is a lot quieter. Both are inside - 24x7. My Nov/Dec hatched chicks are JUST starting to crow. I have those listed all over the place trying to find takers.

I would LOVE to fight the city to allow ONE rooster. But others have tried, and failed. Again, there are dogs in the neighborhood that are much louder. Stupid rules....

It is not the noise that gets them banned it has to do with an illegal activity that they are used for.

The silly part of it is that our boys are not used for that. There is a whole other set of breeds used. The Laws could be changed to allow for Heritage as opposed to the "other" type of boys

Note: we can't discuss this sport here so do not name it

 

[ShrekDawg]

Ditto. It's fun listening to crows echoing back and forth from farm to farm like a volley of vocal arrows.... You can hear in their voices the challenges they're sending.

It's funny, I love the sounds of roosters.  The hoarding neighbor has 7 or 8 yappy dogs that ARE ALWAYS barking.  They are WAY more annoying than any rooster.  But, roosters are BANNED in my entire city.  Even the animal overlay areas - which allows farm animals, are not allowed to have roosters.  

I hatch a LOT of eggs.  I end up with a LOT of baby roosters.  I have had to drop them at the animal shelter, because the feed stores will only take so many.  I currently have 2 that are crowing, both have no crow collars, but they don't help that much on silkies....The Ayam Cemani is a lot quieter.  Both are inside - 24x7.  My Nov/Dec hatched chicks are JUST starting to crow.  I have those listed all over the place trying to find takers.

I would LOVE to fight the city to allow ONE rooster.  But others have tried, and failed.  Again, there are dogs in the neighborhood that are much louder. Stupid rules....

I never understood that either, why they don't allow roosters but seem to have no rules or noise ordinances about dogs. Also don't see how people live with the barking! My dog barks and I'm outside immediately to shut him up (my dad on the other hand lets him bark for several minutes... but either way, we eventually get him). I don't get how people live with that. I would go crazy. And he's a huge dog so has a deep, nice sounding bark. Having a yappy or high pitched dog I would go crazy. Let alone having 8 lol i mean really, even if someone didn't care about anyone else at all, you would think they would want them to shut up for their own sake LOL

 

[ShrekDawg]

It is not the noise that gets them banned it has to do with an illegal activity that they are used for.

The silly part of it is that our boys are not used for that. There is a whole other set of breeds used. The Laws could be changed to allow for Heritage as opposed to the "other" type of boys

Note: we can't discuss this sport here so do not name it

Ahhh that makes more sense.

I agree, they should allow heritage breeds.

But then again it probably is still at least partly due to the noise so someone would probably complain

 

[ronott1]

Ahhh that makes more sense.

I agree, they should allow heritage breeds.

But then again it probably is still at least partly due to the noise so someone would probably complain

Roosters mostly crow during day time hours which allows for more noise. They do not go over the decibel limit for noise usually. Dogs will often go over the noise limit at night when the decibel limit is lower.

I had to get rid of roosters that were in my garage. It was not a decibel issue. The ordinance says no roosters on the premises. It does not say anything about noise.

 

[I Love Layers]

I never understood that either, why they don't allow roosters but seem to have no rules or noise ordinances about dogs. Also don't see how people live with the barking! My dog barks and I'm outside immediately to shut him up (my dad on the other hand lets him bark for several minutes... but either way, we eventually get him). I don't get how people live with that. I would go crazy. And he's a huge dog so has a deep, nice sounding bark. Having a yappy or high pitched dog I would go crazy. Let alone having 8 lol i mean really, even if someone didn't care about anyone else at all, you would think they would want them to shut up for their own sake LOL

IMO before people push for rooster they need to push for dog ordinances. In my town, I live in the country. The dogs are horrible especially the little rat dogs and labs here.

 

[ChickAsThieves]

My neighbors have two dogs that they let out at 10 pm every night and they make the most awful baying sound. I wouldn't care if was 7pm, but my kids are in bed at that time and I think it's really rude. These two dogs also stand in the back corner of their yard and bark at me when I'm working out in my own yard. Hopefully, as we landscape this spring we can put up some bushes to block them out. Ugh. I'd rather every single one of my neighbors had a loud rooster than listening to those stupid dogs!