We have a rooster!

@3KillerBs @TheDawg
Thank you! I'm so not ready to breed at the scale or level where Dan is at, but he's also been doing it for 20 years. I'm just happy to have such a gorgeous male to put with my favorite chicken, and learn all we can along the way. It's going to be so hard to wait for spring!
Don’t wait. I heard that fall chicks are better to have then spring!
 
He’s lovely! I’m so excited for you! I must see pictures of his lone tail feather. I’m highly entertained by chickens with one tail feather.
LOL. Just for you! I tried my best to HIGHLIGHT the single, draping feather cascading down his rump. 🤣
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Don’t wait. I heard that fall chicks are better to have then spring!
Yeah, I could, but I want to give everything a chance to settle down and get ready. It would be our first hatch!

Right now the pen is still basically full, with 5 Australorp hens, 4 Welsummer hens, 3 pullets and 3 ducks. DH wants me to rehome the ducks. :( They are more work for sure, and he seems to think they are harder on the yard. We'll see. The grass is def getting wrecked a bit from only moving the pen once a week a few times, so I want to look into renting some kind of aerator and planting fresh seed to see if we can get it to bounce back nicely. 👍

Assuming everyone is happy staying where they are over the winter and we can keep an even keel, I may feel better about rocking the boat again in the spring. I would consider rehoming either the four Australorps I am not breeding, or else two each of the Welsummer and Australorp hens, and that would leave only eight females in the coop, plus him. Or, for that matter, we may have moved into a new place where I have a bit more space and flexibility to do what I want. 🤷

Time will tell, but waiting gives me time to plan, perhaps build a new brooder setup, pick up incubators etc. ...And generally just not come off like an absolutely crazy chicken lady lol Right now the plan would be to put him with Sydney (and maybe another bird or two that lay a different egg), gather eggs for a week or ten days to set, rinse and repeat. Giving me 21-30 chicks hatched from that single pairing. Then to watch them grow out and decide who stays and who goes. Now the only hitch is wanting to keep as many as possible with very limited space. So taking a little time allows me to work all this logistical stuff out, too.

ETA Keeping only up to about four new pullets in the spring from that pairing, and possibly two cockerels and breaking the sire back out with his sons to the growout pen. That way I don't have to worry too much about space constraints in the actual coop or pen, and that puts us back up to 12 females.

That also means waiting on Marans chicks or Welsummer hatching eggs, unless something else were to shift.
 
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Both fall and spring chicks are good, though that depends on your facilities and your climate. :)



Oh that tail width!!!

The primary fault in my birds is a pinched-in tail. I chose my keepers this year by taking "up skirt" photos of their width in the rear.
LMAO 🤣🤣🤣 Gotta love a good set of chicken up-skirt shots!!! I can't hahaha
 

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