What age do chickens start to breed

[Mizzy]

I am pretty new to chickens. Mine are about 6 months old. I have 4 hens/4 roosters (from what I can tell so far).

My question is, when do Roosters and hens mature as far as trying to mate, breed, lay eggs. Right now I let them free range all day and they put themselves up at dusk. Of course I come out and hand feed them some treats each day too

But I need to know when I should start to separate the roosters from the hens. Right now I only have 4 silkie hens & 1 Rooster that I would want to keep together. The other 3 roosters are different breeds (delaware, crele polish, buff laced polish) and what I'm saying is I don't want a bunch of mixed chicks popping up out of the blue in their barn.

What age do they mate with each other? What age should I start seeing eggs? I read on the net 1 year they will start to mate, but I saw my roo on top of a hen today so I was like uh oh 6 months early? Right now I'm just doing this as a hobby type thing, but I would like to maybe breed some chickens in the future - just not right now. I have some really pretty colored roosters and think they may make some pretty babies. I also heard you can not have too many roosters. I was hoping to have 1 rooster per breed. Does that seem ok or will they all still fight?

Oh and one more question - sorry guys! How do you keep the eggs from forming into babies? Just keep the male rooster separate at all times? Is this possible if they free range? Right now, I just let them out in the morning and let them run around my yard all day. They don't try to get out of the fence and even come when I call "here babies" for treats.

Like I said, I'm very new to this. I use to be a city girl in Detroit lol!! Since I moved to the country I have gotten into chickens and I think I'm addicted!

 

[sewchick]

Mine started around 5 months and I had a nice hatch from my BCM's. Are you sure they are not laying eggs? They will lay in odd places outside. My white silkies started laying at 5 months too but I did not have a roo for them. I do now and I don't know if he has tried his thing yet. He's young.

 

[Mizzy]

I don't know. I really didn't think they would start laying other than their barn. I did hear my girl make some crazy loud bawks a couple different times during the day. I've watched some Youtube videos when one will lay an egg and announce it. I guess I should start checking around my property then huh!

 

[tlbirdsmisty]

What age is ok for a hen to be put with a rooster a year or older?

 

[Frizzle Chicken]

Yeah, you should probably start looking in funny places around your property. I know a guy who had eggs being laid in trees, and I just a few weeks ago confirmed my theory of Bananas, my Ameracauna hen laying eggs in the rafters of the coop when i discovered about 15 eggs splatted all over the floor. Also, my chickens are about 6 months old. Is that old enough to breed them?

 

[Gary L]

What age is ok for a hen to be put with a rooster a year or older?

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Roosters can be fertile really early, but they may have inconsistent fertility. I hatched eggs from a 13 week old rooster!! Hens will lay fertile eggs as soon as they start laying, if a rooster has mated with them, so usually around six months old, give or take 4 weeks. However, it's not *usually* recommended to hatch from young pullet eggs because their eggs are smaller, and their shells can be either overly thick or too thin.

 

[Brabra]

Roosters can be fertile really early, but they may have inconsistent fertility. I hatched eggs from a 13 week old rooster!! Hens will lay fertile eggs as soon as they start laying, if a rooster has mated with them, so usually around six months old, give or take 4 weeks. However, it's not *usually* recommended to hatch from young pullet eggs because their eggs are smaller, and their shells can be either overly thick or too thin.

How young is too young? When are they considered not young anymore?

 

[Party_Chicken]

After you get your first egg from a hen and the first fertilized egg from a roo I consider them adults. I got my first fertilized egg at 6 months of my roosters life and my first egg from my hen at 18 weeks.