Wow! That’s wonderful! It sounds like your selection for docility around humans is working!
That was fast. It took those BA cross chicks (((JGxRIR)xRIR)xBA) less than 2 minutes to figure out the door was open. They’re zipping around, getting pecked and scratching in the grass while the older (RangerX, 7 weeks) chicks sit in the coop.
One of them is already challenging the adult hens, and he’s NOT the one I already know is a boy. So far I’ve seen him jump at two hens, trying to take something they’d just found. Got pecked, remained undeterred.
These chicks are 3 weeks old. Tomorrow they’ll be out all day.
Hi Lauren, Thanks for posting about the dwarfinism gene! I had two chicks die for now apparent reason between the ages of ‘cute and fluffy’ and laying. Both were quite small for their age. Their mother was a French bantam, very small, and father a Silkie cross. I’m now thinking it might have been that gene.
I’m excited for the new birds. Another month! I also have another 23 eggs in the incubator, mostly the BuckeyeX.
When I do my cull this fall, I’ll keep two RangerX, two MaransX, two BuckeyeX, two BAx, and my single reliable broody (BA), although I may keep her with a separate flock. That will leave room for 11 (or 12?) hens from the new breeds.
Since all these breeds are supposed to be excellent foragers (bred for it) I may be able to keep more birds than planned over the winter.
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Last week I realized how focused I’ve been on the boys–I have given away four generations of pullets/hens and still have mainly the “breeds” left.
So weird.
It was only a few weeks ago that I realized I have NO Buckeye crosses, either male or female. No BuckeyeX girls have hatched, and the boys have been consistently aggressive so they ended up in the freezer. That’s why I started a batch of their eggs.
The RangerX cockerel got out of his pen last week and so far he’s being a gentleman. The girls are letting him hang around, and not acting either scared or wary. I put two more of the little boys in the bachelor pad to keep his (former) companion company. The girls are looking a little ragged with three roos, though.
What do you find is the optimal ratio of hens to roosters? (Assuming the roosters are pleasantly behaved?)
Depends on the rooster. One of my current boys had 4 and seemed content with that. The other had 9 and kept trying to poach. Four more should be close to laying in a couple weeks, so that will take some of the pressure off the ladies.
Interesting. Do the (polite) roosters tend to collect a specific harem of ladies that breed with them and none of the rest, and they tend to leave the other roosters’ harems alone? That seems like it would be a very nice trait. Maybe not so nice if you were trying to maximize crossing in a single generation, but over the long term you’d get just as much genetic mixing, and I suspect that it would lead to a stable, pleasant social dynamic for all the chickens.
The girls don’t seem to care. If they like the rooster they’ll allow him to mate, which creates some frustration on the part of the boys, trying to keep “their” girls theirs alone.
Most of the girls like the BielX roo, and he spends a lot of time trying to prevent the others from mating with any of the girls, not just “his” groupies. This leaves them unprotected, so to speak, and the other two sneak in and beg for some action. He hears it and comes running, again leaving the other girls…
The other two both have a few groupies but they’ll willingly leave the “bird in the hand” to go after any hen who appears unattached.
(Laugh.) I see. So the ladies will choose whatever rooster they like right now, and the roos don’t get as much say in the matter as they would prefer. 
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Basically. I understand that with wild flocks a rooster will stake out an area and then call the girls to join him. Whoever likes him comes. He might be perfectly happy with one or two girls.
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At our place we have an “Alpha” roo and the Black Rooster. The white rooster (‘Alpha’) has claimed the whole flock as his…except one chicken. So the Black Rooster has a steady girlfriend (but sneaks up on other hens if he gets the opportunity). The white rooster keeps the flock safe from potential dangers. The black rooster is the most adorable dad to chicklets.
There’s a rule of thumb, saying “one rooster per 7-12 chicken”, but it all depends on many variables; the space they have, the temperament of the rooster(s), the amount and temperament of chicken. One of our chicken will NOT mate with either of the roos. They try, but she flees, making a lot of noise, attracting the other roo to “protect her”. So she’s being protected by both, mated by neither 
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Also not my experience. I have had as many as 15-25 rabbits in my outdoor hutches during the summer NW of Houston, TX.
They do have all day heavy tree shade, but no fans, no misters, only occasional frozen water bottles to snuggle up to. These are outdoor only rabbits, and the heat here is often a high of 100 degrees F or more for weeks at a time in late summer.
Important factors to me: rabbits that have heat tolerance to some degree, short (for rabbits) coated, high production of kits, medium size for easy handling, relatively heavy for meat production.
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My main population is (JG x RIR) with BA, Marans, Ranger and Buckeye hens. My ((Bielefelder x JG) x BA) died a few weeks ago but I think I have 3 of his chicks.
This spring I got chicks of Kraienkoppe, mixed game, and a Dorking/Sussex mix that is bred for disease resistance. All three go broody, all three prefer foraging, and prefer sleeping in trees. Currently almost 5 weeks old. Apparently the Iowa Blue has fertility issues, so none of those hatched.
The hope is that the next roo will be the D/S mix, but we’ll have to wait and see if their behavior pans out. I’m going to introduce the new birds to the rafters–slightly more protected than a tree.
At this point I’m not planning to keep the mixed game boys, but we’ll see.
I’ll be getting rid of another of the BYM boys tonight. Although he’s polite to me and a few of the girls like him, there’s no “asking for permission” or respect for the girls and he doesn’t have any traits I want. Another of the boys will likely be a cull for similar reasons, but he’s only 24 weeks so he might still grow up. I’m concerned because he seems to be going after the 12 week pullets, and that’s one behavior I will not tolerate. I haven’t actually seen him try, I’ve just heard them scream and run from him. The older girls don’t like him. We’ll see.
I’m trying to encourage the new chicks to fly, since their open air roost will be about 12 feet up. So far most of them can handle 4-5 feet without a problem at 8 weeks. Several don’t like to fly at all, which is interesting. The single BAx, one of the games, and one of the Dorking-Sussex seem landbound. I’ve seen them fly, since their food is up high, but they don’t like it and prefer the ground. All three take much longer to decide to go up, they are the first to come down, and they will actually fight for the adults food rather than going up if food is available on the ground.
I’m not sure how to introduce them to their high roost. I’m pretty sure they won’t be comfortable with it at first.
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All but 5 of the new chicks are on their open-air roost, and apparently liking it. I’ll transfer the others this week.
The 3 that were hesitating to fly are fine now. It’s one of the others I’m concerned about, as he’s quite large for his age (larger than my smallest hen at 12 weeks) and his jump off the roost is more of a plummet. I worry about his legs, but he doesn’t really use his wings to get down as the others do. He just jumps. He’s one of the Sussex-Dorking crosses.
I need to make an official count, but I believe I currently have 12 cockerels, one adult roo, and 25 hens, 15 of them old enough to be laying.
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That is so exciting! How many eggs do you seem to be getting per day, on average?
Right now, 2 or 3. The neighbor’s puppies think the birds are fascinating so the hens are in a constant state of panic. I think some have chosen another place to lay since the puppies got in the coop, and others have stopped laying entirely.
I’ll probably find their new laying spot midwinter.
The Kraienkoppe aren’t showing so well. The neighbor’s dogs have gotten three so far. Two yesterday, one this morning.
Interestingly, the one bird that actually sounded the alarm was the Dorking-Sussex cockerel.
7 cockerels, 1 adult roo, 28? Hens/pullets, all over 15 weeks. 10 adult hens in coop 1, 13 pullets in coop 2, and 5 rafter roosting. Coop 2 has been for the youngsters but I want to shift it to broodies only. That means eventually shifting everyone in coop 2 to rafter roosting.
That means I could have 3 broodies at a time, each with their own “room,” and still have room for an incubator batch if it works out that way.
I have the frame of an IBC tote where the other chickees are roosting. If I put the ladder up on it, they have a staircase from which they can jump up to the rafters, and can even get down that way if necessary. These are birds that have never used their wings, so I suspect there’ll be some consternation.