would like to breed my chickens

[hereachick]

Hi Everyone - I would like to try to breed my mille's and see if they could have babies. How would I go about doing this? Their in a pen all day with all types of other chickens.I have 1 roo and 2 female should I put all 3 in a seperate pen together and just let them do their thing? Or just the male and 1 female? I would like them to be pure is there a special length of time I have to wait for the females to clean out? Then how long would they need to be in the pen together when could I take the roo out? Then finally long long do I have to wait from the time they lay until the first hatch?I want them to do the work no incubators here. Also is there any special things I should consider that I have not asked? I know it's alot of questions but, I want to do it right. Thanks for all the help! Looking forward to raising my own baby chicks!!!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll try a few of these

Their in a pen all day with all types of other chickens.I have 1 roo and 2 female should I put all 3 in a seperate pen together and just let them do their thing? Or just the male and 1 female? I would like them to be pure is there a special length of time I have to wait for the females to clean out?

Put all three in a pen by themselves. It will take about 4 weeks for you to be sure they are pure if the hens have been with another breed of rooster. If this is the only rooster you have, the eggs are already pure. You'd probably be OK at 3 weeks, but sure at 4 weeks.

Then how long would they need to be in the pen together when could I take the roo out?

Why would you want to take the rooster out? But to answer your question, you can be pretty sure the eggs will stay fertile for two weeks after the last mating. I've seen posts where some eggs were fertile for 3-1/2 weeks, but that is unusual. I would not count on more than 2 weeks.

Then finally long long do I have to wait from the time they lay until the first hatch?I want them to do the work no incubators here.

There is no telling when a hen will go broody. Some never do. Some go broody 3 times before they are a year old. It depends on the hen's hormones and is breed or strain dependent. Some people claim to have techniques that make a hen go broody. I have not tried them so I cannot say for sure one way or another. You do not have to have one of the Milles go broody to hatch these eggs. Any of your hens that go broody can hatch the eggs. They don't care whose eggs they hatch.

After incubation starts, it takes about 21 days to hatch the eggs.

 

[hereachick]

Thanks, I'll have to seperate the 3 of them to a pen by themselfs.Maybe if the milles won't set my silkies will.They never seem to want to leave the eggs any of the other lay alone anymore ever since we had one that's started eating the eggs,works good for everone.Wish me luck this is the first time I've ever tried to get them to hatch anything. My silkie did hatch some eggs I didn't know about once but, the other chickens killed them there where only two.But, I felt so bad.I know now that they have to be seperated from the flock at least for awhile till they can manage ok with the rest.Thanks again!

 

[dancingbear]

I strongly encourage you to learn as much as you can about the basics of keeping chickens, before you try (and it's good that you're asking questions, that's a good start) hatching and raising, even letting a hen do the job. There are still things you need to do to help, (like marking eggs, separating the broody from the flock, etc.) and things you need to be aware of. I don't always separate mine, but for a beginner, it's probably better if you do.

All these things are covered over and over in other posts, do you know how to do a forum search, to find the topics you need? Click "search" on the navigation bar, and you can enter the topic you want to read about, and chose whether to show the lists as individual posts, or as a list of topics, and get all kinds of related threads you can read. After reading a LOT of them, go ahead and ask more questions. You'll have a much better understanding by then, and the answers will make more sense, after you've got a bit of background.

You might also try your local library, see if they have a few books on raising and breeding chickens, that you could check out and bring home to read in your spare time. You need to make sure it's something geared toward beginners with small flocks, not something aimed at people raising huge commercial flocks.

 

[BellLisamo]

omg i read this wrong, i read would you like to breed my chickens? im like hmmm like is there a stud fee?? ahhahaa

 

[hereachick]

Thanks all