Assorted poultry question New question, page 4

[freemotion]

How old are those hens? I've noticed that my roos are not interested in a hen unless she is laying. They ignore the pullets who aren't laying yet and anyone who goes broody and stops laying. If their backs are bald, they are probably still laying. They will stop for a while with the stress of a move and while molting, so you may just have a double whammy on your hands and they may start laying again soon, if not too old.

My dad told me that his mother would check the hen's vents to see if they were laying, but even she, with decades of experience (she was born in the late 1800's) would choose the wrong hens on occasion and there would be a bunch of eggs inside.

I got rid of my randy roos and egg production went up. The poor girls were plum worn out!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

all y'all are ridiculous!

um so.... i actually LIKE having rooster. i like a big old mean spirited rooster who takes care of the ladies (yes in more ways than one). i like having chicks (free!) and we need the help patrolling the barnyard.

Fred, may he rest in peace, was the meanest so and so i'd ever met. but he rounded up the hens every nite, and he once flew at OD the gander like a demon to get him off one of the older hens.

so thats why you should have a rooster, provided however you dont have kids. or neighbors kids. or kids that live around the corner and randomly show up. unless you want the rooster to chase them off.

that being said - i'd get new/younger roosters and send the oldsters to the pot.

you can trim the spurs BUT, like BB said, just a little at a time.. i nearly killed Fred once by trimming too much at once.

and yes your ladies will accept a new rooster, if they like him. i've heard of hens running off roosters. so its a gamble. but one they've have a good roo they will follow him.

i can tell who lays which egg by watching them. i just wait until i catch one in the act and go and check later. the really big eggs tho.. that hen may be headed for a prolapse. i was all excited when we started getting big eggs but then we had to cull that hen. she was poorly and past the point of any help
:-(

i saved one hen from this by separating her and only feeding her scratch until she stopped laying. then she molted and had a chance to recover. not sure this was the best idea but better than let her suffer.

does that help?

 

[BarredBuff]

So, due to a thread here, I have recently learned I can free range my turkeys. This got me to thinking about my other poultry issues.

We recently acquired about 30 chickens with two Very Old roosters. We have lots of young roosters but the old ones are very good to 'their' girls. They , however have rather impressive spurs. We had to put down one of the hens for the gash in her side due to those spurs. Please trust I did all that I could for her. Most of these hens are not laying, appear to be older and have most of the feathers on their backs torn out constantly because of the spurs on their guys. My question is this.. if we cull the old roosters will they take to new ones? We live in northern Indiana, will their feathers grow back in time for winter? Should I just chalk this up to a learning experience and send them off to auction?

I love roos I think they are as valuable as hens because you can get free chicks, hen protection and I just like roos.They will eventually take to the now roosters. I would personally catch them and cut some spurs with tree pruners. Feathers should grow back. I personally would just say foo ee and get rid of the old chickens and buy back new ones. My 2 cents

 

[Rebecka]

Yes, that helps. That helps a lot. We are totally keeping some roosters. We have RIR and Buff Orpingtons (sp) That will be the flock staple. We were planning on keeping two of each breed. As my sweet husband puts it " I wanna make sure we have a back up rooster' We want chicks. I loved having chicks around and I want a reproducing flock for sure. The intent is to keep the buffs for meat chickens.

We did another head count. This time we counted roos.. Wow! Its bad, its really bad! We have 22 roosters! We have culled out about 30 ( that went in canning jars) We are looking to make a calmer yard. I think this weekend is going to be a messy one !

We have no way of knowing how old these chickens or roosters are. I know the older of the pair is very half heartedly mounting. Short of making cocovan, is there anything I can do with these guys?

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

you can make the broth from them. we had an old old rooster that became pet food. he was weird and icky.

 

[star2525]

Hi!

The amount of eggs you will get will also depend on the breed of birds you have, some birds lay more eggs than others in a years time, and younger ones always lay more.

Getting rid of the Roosters spurs will not have an affect on their fertility, they can be twisted off, you have to hold the leg so that it doesn't turn while your're twisting off the spur., and a new spur bumb will be below once its removed, and the spur will regrow. Usually the better combination for breeding is an older rooster with pullets and a younger cockrel with older hens.

The other thing you should know is I have about 20 Roosters and none of my Roosters cause me any problem at all, you have to use a little common sense when you deal with a Rooster, don't pick up his hens in front of him, those are his hens and he will try to protect them, which is what he's supposed to do, just because you feed him doesn't mean that he won't regard you picking up his hens as a kind gesture. As long as you don't handle the hens in his presence you shouldn't have an issue, I also give my Roosters treats and they call their hens, so all of my Roosters come to me, so picking one up and removing it from a coop so that I can handle the hens isn't an issue, after I'm done I open the door back up and give him treats, works for me.

In order to find out which hens are laying the larger eggs you need to split them up, say half of them in a coop and see what you get after they've laid eggs, maybe do separate breeds cooped up and check the eggs, then if you still want to figure out which ones it could possibly be once you figure out which breed it is, split them up in different areas and don't let them out until they've laid their eggs, then that will narrow it down as to which group has the larger eggs, then keep selecting down until you finally know which particular hens are laying those eggs, it may take you a couple of days to find out which birds it is, but I'll bet you will know once you divide them up and watch for their eggs, and I'd do separate breeds.

Victoria

 

[star2525]

Also you want to select more than one Rooster for each breed to keep, and you want to select the bigger birds with the wider chests as your breeders, I'd keep at least 3 Roosters per each breed and I'd select the best of the breed, keep breeding those larger birds and you'll have a nicer flock of larger birds, just don't keep only one Rooster of a breed, too easy to be put totally out of business that way, best to keep at least 3 of each breed. The other thing is the rooster ratio to hens, some people do 8 hens to 1 Rooster and some only do a trio for better fertility.

Victoria

 

[Rebecka]

Hey Victoria

While my roosters are mean, its mostly to each other. I have gotten a little peck for being a bit to slow with the treats. I think these older chickens and roosters came from someone who handled them all a good bit. I can pick any of their hens up and I have held both of the old roosters as well. They clearly don't like it but tolerate it for a quick look over.

 

[star2525]

I would keep per breed one of the older Roosters that looks the best and is the biggest and 2 cockrels that are large and wide chested, that will get you larger birds in the chicks you hatch, sounds like you have 2 breeds from what I've saw you post, I'd also remove the spurs from the older roosters that you do keep, they'll grow out, it will keep the cockrels from being killed and should give you some diversity in your flock, you can breed for about 8 generations with the same birds, then you start getting deformities, so keeping more than one Rooster will help with the different genes that they carry to help with your gene pool without having to bring in birds outside of your flock that could be sick, I pretty much operate a closed flock its just safer.

Victoria

 

[lalaland]

I didn't read thru all the posts on this thread, so my apologies if I am repeating stuff, but: try this page:

http://ultimatefowl.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/199/

hmmm that didn't work. Igoogled "cut chickens nails" and got to the ultimatefowl blog - there was a step by step with pictures on how to cut the spurs on the roosters to reduce the damage to the hens.

gave two methods, both seemed easy. I don't have roosters now, but I filed it away for future reference.