The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

Sounds more like free chicken dinner to me

He paid me for the boys and still has them, I guess. He showed me a photo of the three (but no girls) and they look good, very clean and healthy, from what I can see in the picture.

Here is the photo he showed me. See? Just the boys, no girls. That concerns me.

 

[Pyxis]

He paid me for the boys and still has them, I guess. He showed me a photo of the three (but no girls) and they look good, very clean and healthy, from what I can see in the picture. Here is the photo he showed me. See? Just the boys, no girls. That concerns me.

I'd be concerned about the other thing people do with roosters. They do look healthy though. Maybe he just keeps roosters as pets? I know some people who keep bachelor flocks.

 

[itspebbl]

They do look very healthy! Maybe he tried to just get those three in a pic becuase they were your birds.

 

[speckledhen]

I'd be concerned about the other thing people do with roosters. They do look healthy though. Maybe he just keeps roosters as pets? I know some people who keep bachelor flocks.

He said he was getting a house in a few months with a yard and building a coop and he wanted maybe 15-20 chickens. Well, if that's his limit, he already has too many roosters, certainly he doesn't need more. Today, he said he wanted the rooster for his brother-in-law and didn't want to sell him one of his. Well, I don't know anything about his BIL and I hesitate to sell birds to one person for someone else unless I know who that person is. Plus, he lives about 25 miles south of me in The Chicken Capital, Ellijay. Makes you wonder why he can't find a rooster for his BIL closer to home. I just have an odd feeling about it. My DH said no way, we'll keep Apollo for now, and he had me close the ads I had up for him.

Now, if someone I know wanted him that takes care of their birds, that's different. But, I have no idea where he'd end up. And he's too gentle to just dump him to the first person who comes along. You can eat any mean old rooster but he's definitely a breeding male, IMO.

 

[Pyxis]

He said he was getting a house in a few months with a yard and building a coop and he wanted maybe 15-20 chickens. Well, if that's his limit, he already has too many roosters, certainly he doesn't need more. Today, he said he wanted the rooster for his brother-in-law and didn't want to sell him one of his. Well, I don't know anything about his BIL and I hesitate to sell birds to one person for someone else unless I know who that person is. Plus, he lives about 25 miles south of me in The Chicken Capital, Ellijay. Makes you wonder why he can't find a rooster for his BIL closer to home. I just have an odd feeling about it. My DH said no way, we'll keep Apollo for now, and he had me close the ads I had up for him.

Now, if someone I know wanted him that takes care of their birds, that's different. But, I have no idea where he'd end up. And he's too gentle to just dump him to the first person who comes along. You can eat any mean old rooster but he's definitely a breeding male, IMO.

Yep, I totally don't blame you for not giving Apollo to him, that all does sound weird. Rehoming good roosters always seems to be an ordeal in one way or the other, doesn't it? Not looking forward to trying to rehome one of my nice cemani boys. Can't use him for breeding so he has to go, but he's great with the hens and fine with people so I don't really want to eat him.

 

[speckledhen]

Yep, I totally don't blame you for not giving Apollo to him, that all does sound weird. Rehoming good roosters always seems to be an ordeal in one way or the other, doesn't it? Not looking forward to trying to rehome one of my nice cemani boys. Can't use him for breeding so he has to go, but he's great with the hens and fine with people so I don't really want to eat him.

Great with hens and people is a wonderful rooster. Seems there are so many bad roosters, either genetic disasters or just plain mean, so I really prefer if someone wants Apollo, that he be given his own harem and be the king of his domain, something he'll probably never be here.


Funny Hector story: I noticed that his left earlobe had a small injury today, even said, "Hey, Hector, who got the better of you?". Well, this evening, my DH proceeds to laugh and tell me that Hector had his tail feathers plucked and handed to him by my 6 yr old red mixed breed hen, Rita. He said they were flying at each other and she got him down on the ground and stood on him. LOL, yeah, Hector met his match in Rita, who is really the sweetest hen on the planet, but she doesn't like young whippersnappers like Hector.

ETA: I was thinking that I might at a certain point, depending on what happens in the barnyard, let Hector and Apollo be one group with the five girls (and added ones later). Hector didn't really do a thing to Apollo today. Apollo is super jumpy around him, but generally, they stand and dig around close to each other without any incident most of the time. Well, Hector scratches and talks to his girls, and Apollo's, at leisurely pace, while Apollo is ready to jump and run if Hector looks at him too hard, LOL. But, they seem at times almost like one BR group. I just need to open up that section that Apollo is currently occupying.

ETA, again! Almost forgot to tell you: a man came to buy my cooler-bator and talked about the pack that I mentioned before here. He lives up there, only a couple miles from me. He said he heard a scream and went out and within 20 ft of him, a pack of coyotes was tearing into a fawn. He got his AR15 and shot 8 of them then removed the carcass of the poor baby off his property. The next day, they'd drug it back almost to where he killed their pack members. He said he's seem over 25 of them and lost a LOT of birds, including guineas and turkeys.

 

[Wyatt0224]

Wow shocked to see Hector finally met his match. Wonder what they will make him think now. Coyote sightings around here are starting to become more and more frequent. At a hunting club that my dad and I are in one guy said he saw two mangy looking German shepards running the woods but we thought they were coyotes and we hear them around my house at least once a month. And this is two terrible stories about coyotes and chickens a good friend of mine told me:

Story 1: My friend who I will call sally knew a local liquor store owner who had chickens. One day he had a cookout at his house and he kept a small flock of 10ish chickens, one of whom was really friendly and stayed up on this guys deck during the whole cookout. Later that evening he soon learned coyotes had killed and eaten every other chicken in his flock. Only the super friendly one survived because she was around people.

Story 2: This tragedy happened to Sally herself. She has a large backyard that goes down a hill which you can't see the property line and is surrounded by woods. Sally has a fence around the yard but trees frequently knock it down during bad storms. One day after a storm she didn't check the fence and within 15 minutes 2 coyotes killed 3 of her New Hampshire hens. Since then she walks the fence weekly. And both of those stories happened within 3 miles of me. It seems that coyotes are relentless killers once they put their mind to it.

 

[getaclue]

I agree with you about being suspicious of a person wanting too many roosters.

8 is a good start when there are that many yotes that are comfortable venturing into civilization, but only a start.

 

[speckledhen]

Wow shocked to see Hector finally met his match. Wonder what they will make him think now. Coyote sightings around here are starting to become more and more frequent. At a hunting club that my dad and I are in one guy said he saw two mangy looking German shepards running the woods but we thought they were coyotes and we hear them around my house at least once a month. And this is two terrible stories about coyotes and chickens a good friend of mine told me:

Story 1: My friend who I will call sally knew a local liquor store owner who had chickens. One day he had a cookout at his house and he kept a small flock of 10ish chickens, one of whom was really friendly and stayed up on this guys deck during the whole cookout. Later that evening he soon learned coyotes had killed and eaten every other chicken in his flock. Only the super friendly one survived because she was around people.

Story 2: This tragedy happened to Sally herself. She has a large backyard that goes down a hill which you can't see the property line and is surrounded by woods. Sally has a fence around the yard but trees frequently knock it down during bad storms. One day after a storm she didn't check the fence and within 15 minutes 2 coyotes killed 3 of her New Hampshire hens. Since then she walks the fence weekly. And both of those stories happened within 3 miles of me. It seems that coyotes are relentless killers once they put their mind to it.

Sounds about right. See, friendly hens are safer!

I agree with you about being suspicious of a person wanting too many roosters.

8 is a good start when there are that many yotes that are comfortable venturing into civilization, but only a start.

The pack is either 20-25 or 28-30, depending on who you talk to, same area close to me. I haven't heard them around in the last several weeks, though I thought I heard a fox alarm-bark and usually, when I hear that, the yotes are nearby and that's what he/she is alarming about, whether I hear them yipping or not. They can travel the entire length of that road and back in one night, it's only 2-3 miles long from the road I live off of and the highway at the other end that goes between Murphy, NC and Copperhill, TN. There are some lone, healthy looking ones and more mangy ones that are in the pack, from reports on the local yard sale site.

BTW, the little brown bat is still on my porch ceiling in the same spot. Wonder how long he'll stay this time.

 

[h2oratt]

Once a chickens comb is damaged does it repair or will it always have the scar or black area?