Two Roosters? Breeding Pens? I'm Confused!

[Hatrick]

Ok so we have 4 new Barred Rocks and one is for sure a roo and someone else is looking mighty suspicious. They free range on 4 acres, can I keep both roos?

And what are these breeding pens I'm hearing about? Are they necessary? Do I care? Can't I just let them out everyday and let them "go at it" for lack of a more meaningful term?

I'm not even sure how to go about letting my girls hatch their own chicks. Do I let them? We don't have an incubator so I guess I don't have any choice.

 

[DTchickens]

Quote:
Can you keep both roosters? You can if you want to. A lot of people will tell you 1 rooster per 10 hens, but don't worry about that too much unless it begins to become a problem. I have had chickens all my life, and we have never had more than 5-6 hens in pens with a cock (and usually it is only one/two) and all the birds did well (out of I'm not even sure how many).

Sometimes you may find birds that end up being over-bred, but generally speaking you don't have to have that many hens. I just say that before it comes up.

What are breeding pens? Well, they're pens dedicated to breeding purposes for whatsoever reason (show, pleasure, sell, etc) simply put. Are they necessary? Not really, unless you want to separate your birds for breeding purposes so you know which chicks come from what pair/trio/quad etc. If you're just keeping them for pleasure, you don't really have a reason to have individual set-ups.

Hens will probably do a better job at raising the chicks then you will ever. Most people just like using incubators so they can raise more. Hens are generally the easier, cheaper route though however (though some breeds/birds are horrible mothers).

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[TheReidHomestead]

Breeding pens come in handy when you are breeding more than one breed and need to keep the breeds seperate so you don't end up with mutts.

 

[Ariel301]

If you want to raise chicks--your hens may or may not be so inclined. A lot of the more common breeds have had the broodyness breed out of them and will not sit on eggs very often, if ever. And when they do go broody, they do it on their own timing, not when you want them to. (That could very well be January in two feet of snow

) You can't MAKE them broody. So if your chickens end up not being broody, you can either buy or build an incubator and hatch that way, or get one or two hens of another breed of chicken that is known for being broody and wait until they want to sit on eggs, then put some under them.

If you don't care which roosters mate with which hens and which hens you want eggs from, there is no reason for breeding pens.

The two roosters should get along with each other just fine. Breeds that are not game breeds (those birds whose ancestors were bred for fighting) don't tend to fight to the death or even cause serious damage to each other, especially if there's plenty of room for them to get away from each other if they have a disagreement.