Will Brahma roosters be too much around Leghorn hens?

[Mrs. K]

The two above posters give excellent and realistic advice. I think you might have miss-understood me, I do not think that 10-12 hens per rooster is ideal, I think that you should have close to 20-30 hens before you keep a second breeding rooster.

There is rather a steep learning curve to producing your own food, and producing enough food to live on, is steeper yet. You can do it, or do it close to your goals, but my advice is to make your plan a 2-3 year plan, not a one year plan.

It sounds so easy, but a lot does not go to plan...A LOT. I too am in a do over, after a major wreck, very dang irritating. Over the years, I have found, I really do not care for dual purpose birds unless in a soup or casserole. After years in the hobby, I have a second coop, so I do raise up meat birds. Sitting here now, with 6 head just in the freezer, cooking down the boney parts, backs, and necks, and what you have when you debone the breasts. Will can that up, and can up some broth.

I grow a medium garden, I have a dozen hens, a dozen meats, and of course cattle, often times we eat off the ranch, but not always. I have had my share of wrecks.

Please don't think we are discouraging you, WE UNDERSTAND. We are just trying to warn you, that it might take a bit more time, what you thought you wanted, maybe not. There are many aspects to this hobby, you don't have to do it all at once.

Good luck, and really to me, there is nothing more fun than a broody hen with chicks...but I have bought a lot of chicks too, a lot of chicks. Really not that expensive.

Mrs K

 

[Lady of McCamley]

@DoozyWombat

You've gotten a lot of good advice, some conflicting. I wanted to tell you my story of how I went about to moving into sustainable flock using only broodies.

I started with feed store chicks, like most folk. After a couple of years with that (no roosters), I decided I wanted to try to brood naturally as I, uhem, burned a coop down using heat lamps in November during pullet cold integration. Cooled my desire for artificial brooding completely. (We almost burned the house down. God was gracious.)

That spring I bought a 3 year old Silkie hen from a swap from a breeder who stated THIS hen would brood chicks. She was not wrong. Oma-San, as she was affectionately dubbed, faithfully went into brood every 3 to 4 months. She would finish one batch and after fledging them at about 8 weeks, take a short break, then be at it again. She was also insistent that I could keep my meddling hands off. She did all the work.

Seeing the light of the ease of natural brooding, and that hens are WAY better at it than I am, I dedicated my efforts to getting good at natural brooding. I had no pasty butt, no coccidiosis, no integration woes as mom does the interference, and NO heat lamps, the chicks are cold hardy within a couple of days as they have momma as a warming hutch when they run around in little down coats...it will BLOW your mind seeing 3 day old chicks run in the snow. My broody chicks grow faster, are stronger, mature earlier. I know as that first year, not fully trusting my experiment, I ran side by side artifical to hen brooded. Brooding WORKS. But you have to know how to get a brooding stock started if you want to be sustainable at this.

Start by building a designated broody hutch. Forget about using Brahmas. They are behemoths that crush eggs easily. Get a stable of Silkie hens, preferably from a breeder that has a good line of proven brooders. Most Silkie breeders are weary of a number of their hens who are compulsory brooders. I paid $35 a hen, best investment ever. I started with a flock of 2 Silkies (as I'm on small acreage and don't have the room you do) and increased to 3. (Some BYCers use game hens, also a good choice).

That Second year, I set 6 eggs under each hen, as bantams are smaller. I generally got 50 to 75% hatch rate at first, as I was still perfecting my set up. Soon I was to about 80% hatch rate. I chose only the best of my stock to hatch, and I bought expensive breeder eggs for breeds I wanted. I chose those who have been proven to have some brooding traits and others not (I actually breed for egg color....olive and dark brown). In time, I bred my Cochins to my Barnvelder and got middle size hens that brood well but are larger.

Over time, I discovered something very unexpected. Pullets hatched under a broody hen, no matter if my sustainable line eggs or purchased eggs, are far more likely to brood themselves. I continued to select for those pullets, while also keeping half my flock in commercial layers for egg quantity. In time, about 5 years, I was able to fully main coop brood with 100% success rate with daughters of daughters who now brood willingly. I even have one hen who hatches 110% (she is sneaky...I place 6 eggs, she has one hidden in her wing every time! I place 10 eggs, I get 11 chicks!)

Now, 100% of my birds are bred and raised on my property. I do not breed for "standard" as I breed for health, longevity, and egg color. I have had zero disease in over 3 to 4 years. The further away you get from commercial line genes, the more sustainable your flock is.

So you CAN totally do this going broody hen the first year. Just keep your expectations reasonable knowing you may have to buy some commercial layers to keep eggs going first.

The most important thing is to take great care in the selection of your broody stock using Silkies, first choice, and Bantam Cochins, second choice, Games third choice. It is important to have a designated brooding hutch where the mothers, which are smaller bantams, and babes, are isolated from the flock by fence to protect moms and babes during tender times (as Silkies and Bantam Cochins generally don't run well in a full size flock...the waddle...not run...and are hawk bait.) Also, brooding hutch isolation prevents stolen nests, broken tramped upon eggs, chicks crushed until the flock learns to accept the whole process. Make sure your flock has fence access to see the grow outs. It is easy to integrate the grow outs into the main flock at about 10 weeks of age.

In about 4 to 5 years, you can move to brooding with the daughters of the daughters in main coop, always selecting for brood friendly flock members. A good rooster will integrate and protect his brooding hen and the new chicks.

My experiences.

LofMc

 

[DoozyWombat]

Right now, I am aiming at a self-sustaining flock for meat and eggs, reproducing their own numbers.

You never know if a hen will go broody at all and you certainly cannot control when. I appreciate the idea of self-sustaining but to have any control over if and when the eggs hatch you need an incubator, especially if meat is one of your goals. I like my broody hens but I could not put one chicken a week on the table without my incubator even with a lot of broody hens. The logistics just don't work out for me. You have a nice set-up, that 1/4 acre should stay green in season and that coop gives you a lot of flexibility. You do not need a big expensive incubator, a lot of chicks get hatched in those smaller cheaper ones, but being able to control when they hatch if pretty valuable. Trying to do that with just broody hens can be very frustrating, especially at the start.

I like my broody hens. The tendency to go broody is inherited from both the mother and the father. That's where the logistics of an incubator can help. When a hen goes broody she stops laying eggs. That's generally when you collect eggs to hatch, so her eggs don't generally hatch, it's the other non-broody hens' eggs. You are perpetuating the genetics of "don't go broody".

If you identify a hen that goes broody and collect her eggs for incubation, then select a replacement rooster and maybe a couple of pullets from those chicks, the odds of a hen going broody in future generations can go way up. That's what happened to my flock when I did that. I went from a flock where maybe 1/4 of the hens might go broody (and usually at an inconvenient time) to where practically every hen went broody at least once a year. I still had to do an early spring incubator hatch to keep from running out of meat in the freezer because they typically don't go broody early enough. And I needed a good broody buster.

We all have our own goals and set-ups, we each have to find out own way. There are a lot of different nuances. For example, if you only eat your cockerels you'll have to hatch a lot more chicks than if you eat your excess pullets too. That's if you have a goal of how often you eat chicken. I eat my excess pullets, there are only two of us so we don't need a huge chicken. But many people sell their excess pullets to try to help recoup feed costs. You'll work out the system that works for you, just be patient and stay flexible. Nothing ever works out exactly as planned.

My main laying/breeding flock is one rooster and 6 to 8 hens. Less than all these optimum hen-rooster ratios you see. For your goals you may find you need more hens. With these numbers I don't often have the behavioral issues you can. Oh, stuff happens, but not that frequently. There is a difference in the behaviors of mature hens and roosters versus immature pullets and cockerels, I take that into account before I take dramatic action like eating one. I do select some of my freezer birds by behaviors, male and female. If one is consistently doing something detrimental to the flock it is gone and not allowed to breed.

For example, after I reduced my first hatchery order of 28 chicks down to a flock of one rooster and 8 hens (mature enough to assess them, I thought) I had two hens that were consistently barebacked. Before breeding season I put those two in the freezer. That reduced my hen to rooster ratio from 8 to down to 6 to 1. But the problem went away. How could I blame the rooster for that? That is part of the experience I call upon when I say I don't believe that you have to have a certain number of hens per rooster. I think a side benefit by not allowing those hens to breed was that barebacked was pretty rare in the pullets that hatched after that.

I've had a friend call me ruthless when talking about the way I manage my flock. I thanked her, considered it a compliment. But I think being careful in selecting which birds get to breed is an important part in developing a elf-sufficient flock.

Wow. Just wow. Lots of wonderful experience, there. I had not thought about the broody hen hatching non-broody chicks instead of her own. Lots to learn. THANK you!

 

[DoozyWombat]

@DoozyWombat

You've gotten a lot of good advice, some conflicting. I wanted to tell you my story of how I went about to moving into sustainable flock using only broodies.

I started with feed store chicks, like most folk. After a couple of years with that (no roosters), I decided I wanted to try to brood naturally as I, uhem, burned a coop down using heat lamps in November during pullet cold integration. Cooled my desire for artificial brooding completely. (We almost burned the house down. God was gracious.)

That spring I bought a 3 year old Silkie hen from a swap from a breeder who stated THIS hen would brood chicks. She was not wrong. Oma-San, as she was affectionately dubbed, faithfully went into brood every 3 to 4 months. She would finish one batch and after fledging them at about 8 weeks, take a short break, then be at it again. She was also insistent that I could keep my meddling hands off. She did all the work.

Seeing the light of the ease of natural brooding, and that hens are WAY better at it than I am, I dedicated my efforts to getting good at natural brooding. I had no pasty butt, no coccidiosis, no integration woes as mom does the interference, and NO heat lamps, the chicks are cold hardy within a couple of days as they have momma as a warming hutch when they run around in little down coats...it will BLOW your mind seeing 3 day old chicks run in the snow. My broody chicks grow faster, are stronger, mature earlier. I know as that first year, not fully trusting my experiment, I ran side by side artifical to hen brooded. Brooding WORKS. But you have to know how to get a brooding stock started if you want to be sustainable at this.

Start by building a designated broody hutch. Forget about using Brahmas. They are behemoths that crush eggs easily. Get a stable of Silkie hens, preferably from a breeder that has a good line of proven brooders. Most Silkie breeders are weary of a number of their hens who are compulsory brooders. I paid $35 a hen, best investment ever. I started with a flock of 2 Silkies (as I'm on small acreage and don't have the room you do) and increased to 3. (Some BYCers use game hens, also a good choice).

That Second year, I set 6 eggs under each hen, as bantams are smaller. I generally got 50 to 75% hatch rate at first, as I was still perfecting my set up. Soon I was to about 80% hatch rate. I chose only the best of my stock to hatch, and I bought expensive breeder eggs for breeds I wanted. I chose those who have been proven to have some brooding traits and others not (I actually breed for egg color....olive and dark brown). In time, I bred my Cochins to my Barnvelder and got middle size hens that brood well but are larger.

Over time, I discovered something very unexpected. Pullets hatched under a broody hen, no matter if my sustainable line eggs or purchased eggs, are far more likely to brood themselves. I continued to select for those pullets, while also keeping half my flock in commercial layers for egg quantity. In time, about 5 years, I was able to fully main coop brood with 100% success rate with daughters of daughters who now brood willingly. I even have one hen who hatches 110% (she is sneaky...I place 6 eggs, she has one hidden in her wing every time! I place 10 eggs, I get 11 chicks!)

Now, 100% of my birds are bred and raised on my property. I do not breed for "standard" as I breed for health, longevity, and egg color. I have had zero disease in over 3 to 4 years. The further away you get from commercial line genes, the more sustainable your flock is.

So you CAN totally do this going broody hen the first year. Just keep your expectations reasonable knowing you may have to buy some commercial layers to keep eggs going first.

The most important thing is to take great care in the selection of your broody stock using Silkies, first choice, and Bantam Cochins, second choice, Games third choice. It is important to have a designated brooding hutch where the mothers, which are smaller bantams, and babes, are isolated from the flock by fence to protect moms and babes during tender times (as Silkies and Bantam Cochins generally don't run well in a full size flock...the waddle...not run...and are hawk bait.) Also, brooding hutch isolation prevents stolen nests, broken tramped upon eggs, chicks crushed until the flock learns to accept the whole process. Make sure your flock has fence access to see the grow outs. It is easy to integrate the grow outs into the main flock at about 10 weeks of age.

In about 4 to 5 years, you can move to brooding with the daughters of the daughters in main coop, always selecting for brood friendly flock members. A good rooster will integrate and protect his brooding hen and the new chicks.

My experiences.

LofMc

Lots more great experience, except that I can't forget about using Brahmas, as they are almost my entire flock. I don't really want to go to bantams or other smaller breeds, and Brahmas are supposedly able to go broody. Maybe they will, and maybe they won't, but that's the hand I have at the moment. I like the idea of having a broody hutch, too.

I should say that my goal here is also to minimize store-bought feed, encouraging free ranging and foraging as much as possible. I'm not worried about lower egg production, but processing birds is such a pain that I would rather stick to larger breeds. Ultimately, I want to build a self-sustaining, dual-purpose flock. That may be a pipe dream, but that's what I'm aiming for, and you just gave a lot of great, useful advice in working toward it.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Lots more great experience, except that I can't forget about using Brahmas, as they are almost my entire flock. I don't really want to go to bantams or other smaller breeds, and Brahmas are supposedly able to go broody. Maybe they will, and maybe they won't, but that's the hand I have at the moment. I like the idea of having a broody hutch, too.

I should say that my goal here is also to minimize store-bought feed, encouraging free ranging and foraging as much as possible. I'm not worried about lower egg production, but processing birds is such a pain that I would rather stick to larger breeds. Ultimately, I want to build a self-sustaining, dual-purpose flock. That may be a pipe dream, but that's what I'm aiming for, and you just gave a lot of great, useful advice in working toward it.

You can begin with your Brahmas. Just be aware that there will be more egg and chick loss as commercial line Brahma mothers can be quite clumsy. Also, they are not prolific brooders. They may go into brood once a season, if you are lucky, but generally no more. Also commercial lines have been selected against brooding, for egg/meat production, so you may be lucky to ever get a decent brooder with the first generation. Many commercial quality birds simply don't have the genetics for a good brood. They "sulk" pretending to linger on the eggs for a bit but bail long before the required 21 days. Also, as stated in my first post, brooded chicks tend to become brooding mothers, more so than what you would think from their genetics. It is sort of like it imprints on them somehow to encourage their genetic instincts.

You likely will have better luck with the prolific brooding lines (Silkie, Bantam Cochin, Game, breeder quality Buff Orpington even) than commercial Brahmas...at first. Once you get away from the commercial line genes using your own selected stock, things will improve. The idea of bantams is to kick start the process with reliable brooders that brood often enough to get enough flock hatched to begin a sustainable brooding process with your large fowl.

Now, I brood predominately with my main flock daughters, in the main coop. This year I hatched 16 chicks, and then another 8, which is a lot for me as I only keep about 18 altogether. All with daughters of daughters who now are good brooders and mothers.

You can start with your current ones, if you get lucky and get a broody Brahma, but likely it will take a whole lot longer to get to sustainability.

Just a thought.

LofMc

 

[aart]

Brahmas make a pretty nice carcass.
Have had one go broody, but I didn't want to hatch at the time and she broke easily.
But they also are not great at feed to egg conversion, they eat a lot and eggs are smaller and less prolific, I got rid of mine because of that.
Know a permaculture couple who keep silkies as brooders, other breeds for eggs, and CX and rangers for meat.

 

[Folly's place]

Right now you have Brahmas, beautiful birds for sure. This doesn't mean that you will always have only that breed! Consider ordering some other breeds, and see how you feel about them. Many of us start with a set of 'must haves', and change out favorite list over time. So many choices!
Mary

 

[Mrs. K]

Or have a meat flock and a laying flock. I am headed more toward that, layers and meats. When I hatch out, those roosters too, but they go to casseroles or soup.

 

[DoozyWombat]

I had to look up chicken hook. What a concept! Thanks for the idea.

To follow up: I did get a chicken hook, and it was very useful. As I began harvesting the remaining Cornish Cross birds, the remaining ones got more and more skittish. (Not surprising, as every time I picked up a bird, it didn't come back.) The last one would have been almost impossible to catch without that hook, but I caught her quickly with the hook. (I used it just to catch her leg, and quickly got hold of her before she could pull out.)

The other birds are Dark Brahmas and one White Leghorn. The Leghorn was skittish before I started taking the other white birds away, but she doesn't want me to get within 40 feet of her now. Oh, well.

 

[Mrs. K]

I love my chicken hook. The first time I used it, I had the chicken in my hands so fast, I surprised myself!

This is such a fun hobby.