The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: wonderpupp on December 22, 2010, 11:10:52 am
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I have 2 blue belle hens, (named blue and belle) they run with a rescued prize winning blue silkie bantam rooster (called Gizmo)
I incubated some eggs and hatched 2 lovely bantam / blue chicks, (Babybelle and Happi)
I have incubated 2 silkie eggs I was given, who turned out to be both boys (Civic and Leon) but are fine together as they are brothers. (Leon is a wonderful little man, comes when called, and so friendly.)
So I have 4 boys and 3 girls. (had more girls, but next doors cat got one when they were little, and we had a fox issue at the end of summer, so had to step up our defences, which seem to be working.)
At the moment these are in 3 separate runs. I want to get this down to 2 runs. Space not really an issue at the moment. Plenty of foxproof wire panels available, and fresh (albeit frosty covered) ground.
As Civic and Leon are already familiar with babybelle and Happi, (share a mesh wall and never seen them fight through it or anything)
I thought about putting them all in together, but do you think the 1 girl there would be ok with the 3 boys?
OR should I put her in with her parents (Blue, belle and gizmo) and leave the other 3 boys all together?
I plan on getting some ladies for Civic to run with, as he is a handsome chap.
Or do I have to eat one of them for Xmas dinner?
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I would definitely change the ratio - I don't think even 1:1 is very fair on the girls, let alone 1:3, as the girls will get far too much attention from the chaps. Cockerels can do a lot of damage to the hens with their spurs as they tread, and one of my hens came to me with hardly any feather left on her back and sides for this reason. Fewer boys or more girls is the way forward...
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too many boys will most likely start fighting. Mine were brothers and had to be separated eventually. The more girls the kinder for the ladies, 4 or more per boy I would say...His favourite had a bald back all summer, I was considering knittiing her a jacket for winter but then the feathers grew, phew ::) :chook: :&>
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I would go for 1 cockerel per pen unless the breed is smaller9eg bantam) or you have a lot of hens free rangeing and plenty of space for them to escape one and other.
For breeding i usually go for once cockerel to 2/3 hens and keep then separate for the rest