What is the best way to keep a mixed flock pure for breeding?

[warmfuzzies]

I have a mixed flock, with RIR, cochins and partidge rocks. I also have some mics. bantams in there.

I am planning to be breeding the large fowl, but I have them togeher, and they free range. I wont be breeding them all year. We are revamping our pen, so I have some options. I only have one coop, and a smaller tractor type box.

1. Keep them all together, with the roos seperate, and put the right roos with the right hens once a week or so. The hens would range, the roos would not.

2. Make the pen into two cages, (I dont have enough wire or room to make any more then hat right now) and keep one or two types pure for the three weeks required, then trade off. They could trade off free ranging, like every other day.

Can anyone think of anyother ways that would work? What would you all do?

 

[faykokoWV]

I'd love to know the answer to this. I'm looking a breed some next spring and also had the same question.

 

[Katy]

It sounds like a lot of extra work to do it those ways. I keep mine penned seperate year round.

 

[cybercat]

Ok you are not going to like to hear this but in order to breed pure you will have to keep them seperated for the whole breeding season if you want to sell pure eggs. If you do a month on and a month off you will not get pure eggs. If you sell these eggs and they hatch out mix well there goes your reputation before you even started building one. The only way to make sure they are pure is to pen them by breed and keep all other away for the whole season. You should wait at least a month if not more after they have run in the mix flock before you set eggs or sell eggs.

If you want to run the free range like I do then you have to work with one breed only. I am not set up to do more than one right now but when i am i will have more coops to put breeds into to keep them sperate and pure. many breeder only keep a 1 to 3 ratios for a breeding pen but with at least 2 pens for each breed.

If you do not want to sell hatching eggs and these are just for you then go ahead and do what you wish. But do not be suprised you hatch out alot of mix chicks.

 

[warmfuzzies]

So it would work to keep the roos penned and put the right roo in with the right hens once or twice a week, though, right?

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Depends whether the roos mate everyone, or only their favorites, and whether this amount of moving them around would affect their behavior, along with some other factors.

If you are thinking of selling purebred chicks or eggs, I would work towards separate and permanent pens for those breeds. Two or three weeks is not a guarantee. You don't want to sell "purebred" eggs that turn out to be from another daddy. I've read too many posts on here where this is probably what happened.

 

[patandchickens]

The difficulty with both of your proposed systems is that you need to be able to tell which hen laid which egg (unless you are ok with a situation where you are pretty positive that all chicks are purebred but can't easily tell what breeds you will *get* until they hatch.) If you want to be able to, say, mail someone a dozen RIR hatching eggs; or set a particular breed or two in your own 'bator; then your systems will only work if you are really good at looking at an egg and KNOWING what breed it came from.

If you really want to produce purebreds out of a mixed flock -- and bear in mind that it's not a great life for the roos, and may create extra social stress with all the switching in and out of the main flock -- I think your best bet would be to put the chickens you want to breed from in a separate pen FOR ABOUT 5.5-6 WEEKS, that's 4 to make sure the eggs will be purebred and then 1.5-2 wks to collect eggs (or whatever other time period you were contemplating for actual egg collection). Then you can dump the hens back in the main flock, return the rooster to his year of solitary confinement, and put a different breed in the separate pen.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

you could put 4 dividers in your coop and make separate runs for them......
The runs don't have to be huge and you can rotate your pens to free-range.

you can make an inexpensive chicken coop and it doesn't have to be fancy....just a floor, walls, slanted roof and a door. If you have an old dog house laying around you can put a door on it with a roost and add a laying box to the side. TSC has the 4 ft tall 50 ft long welded wire pretty cheap, under $30 I think.

 

[Bec]

When I am ready to breed pure, I put the ones that I want to breed in a pen to themselves and then when I am done, they can go back out. I usually do this for months at a time..locking them in together for a week wont work if you have other roos around. you have to have them separated for a good 2-3 weeks, some people say more, to have them breed pure if the hens were exposed to other roos.

This works well for me.

 

[faykokoWV]

How about if you only have roos of the breed that you want pure?

My plan was to have roos in a run and coop next to the girls, allow the one in I want to breed then a three week break with no roos, then the next guy's up to bat.

I plan on selling chicks, not hatching eggs, so I should be able to tell them apart?? Barnevelder vs Barnie mix with BR, BO etc..
of course I think I could tell a Barnevelder egg from a BO egg too.


Would this be too much social upheavel if all the roos are raised together?