Hmmmm... one of the things I love about my Reds. I haven't begun sorting for the year yet so everyone under 6 months old is still in one big pen. Had knee surgery and haven't had the ability to do anything but combine. Due to knee surgery I Jane combined more frequently to fewer but larger groups. It's pretty cool... As batches came out of the brooders they got added to the older group, so in that huge grow out pen I have reds as young as 5 weeks old and as old as 5 months old. They always seem to welcome the new weekly batch of youngsters with open wings. Pretty cool as I have more than 100 in that pen and they are all doing well and thriving. They are all very sweet to each other.
Now of course I have no adults in there. But i could never just add 4-6 week old chicks each week to the larger grow out group and have them thrive well if it was one of my other breeds. I tried it this year due to the circumstances and it just didn't work. The younger ones get picked on. But not in the rir pen.
Over the next 2 years these hrir will be one of the only 2 remaining breeds here at Red Ridge. I simply can't understand or justify working with or keeping any others. I just love them and don't understand why everyone doesn't raise standard bred Reds.
Excellent post. This is one of the issues I have been thinking about, because I free range my flock and use an all mobile set up (coops & fencing). I just don't have a lot of facilities and never will. Plus, I hatch with broody's which will spread out my hatches over a longer period of time. I won't have a grow out pasture this year, because I will only have a hand full of cockerels and they are too valuable to place in their own pasture by themselves, due to an increased risk of hawk attack. Next year I can start breeding, put more feet on the ground and will also have cocks frm this years group as insurance against potential losses. I hope my line of Barred Rocks will behave as you described above. When you make your selections from the grow out pen, where do the cockerels go? Do you ever place one with an existing flock that has a cock? Set up a new flock just for the cockerels that can continue to get along with each or put them in pens and keep them completely separate from each other and other hens, until it's time to go to the breeding pen? Or maybe all of the above, depending on the circumstances. As you can probably tell I don't like keeping chickens in pens.
Thanks
