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Most cockerels are going to be jerks toward the pullets and hens when they are cockerels. Their hormones are out of control and tell them to dominate. If you can get through that phase many if not most cockerels mature into roosters that take good care of their hens. That phase can be hard to...

Before you can decide which to keep you need to decide why you want to keep a rooster? You can't keep the right one unless you know what you want. Are you planning on hatching chicks? If so are the chicks for meat, eggs, or something else? Does chick color matter? If not for chicks, why...

You probably know most of this. The eggs can hatch two days or more early or late so you never know for sure when they will hatch. Sometimes the hatch is over in less than 24 hours after the first egg hatching. I've had hatches drag into the third day before the last one hatched. I put...

Orange or yellow yolks has nothing to do with a rooster or fertility. That is strictly diet. Either they are getting the carotenes to color the yolks or they are not. Carotenes could come from something you are feeding them or from plants or blooms they find when foraging. Maybe some...

My understanding is that you want two bantam pullets. Breed does not matter. Of course you know that if you hatch eggs you have no idea how many will be male and how many will be female. You will need a plan to manage that. Find your State thread in the "Where am I? Where are you" section...

Option 1 - Let them fight it out. One may kill or seriously injure the other or they may agree which is the dominant one and go back to working together. Option 2 - Keep them permanently separated. That could be one by himself or build a coop and run for one, let the other free range, and...

I had a two-week-old kill its sibling and start on a separate sibling before I separated him. So yes, take it seriously. After being separated for a day from the broody hen and his siblings he quit trying to kill them. When he reached butcher size he was the first one to go. I had a...

How have you determined that the eggs are not fertile? I think this is critical to answering your concern. How many hens or pullets do you have? How old are they and what breeds? What breed is the rooster? Are they kept together all of the time or only part time?

With Wyandottes a tote 12" x 12" or bigger should work well. My nests are 16" x 16" so bigger is not a problem. But fasten them down so they cannot flip when they step on the edge.

Yours free range. Excellent. Put a cage for them to sleep in built with wire so the others can see them in the coop. Allow the young ones to roam in one of those runs during the day. That way they get to see each other. By putting them in the cage in the coop at night, you train them to...

There are a lot of "it depends" on the feather color of the offspring. There are two ways to make an all-white bird. If the leghorn is pure for Dominant White with a black base then you can expect to get almost all white chicks, possibly with red or black leakage. Leakage is where a few...

How big is your coop, in feet or meters? How big are your runs, in feet or meters? Photos showing how they are set up and of the inside of your coop could be very helpful in us understanding what you are working with. It is possible you could just put them together and they will get along...

It is possible them getting rolled around could have an effect. My concern about that would be when they pip if the pip hole is rolled so they cannot get air. That would be pretty rare. It could have affected one or two of those eggs hatching? I do not think that is what caused the overall...

For straight run Cornish, that is not normal. For straight run Cornish Cross that would not be unusual. The broiler industry knows how to feed Cornish Cross to avoid that at that age. You see that on here a lot. Cornish Cross have been bred to be fed a certain way to reach optimum butcher...

I don't know what kind of device you are on or what the home page looks like to you. It's under the Articles section. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/categories/chicken-coops.12/

Lots of people use those. Maybe set them in a nest as an insert that can be lifted out and dumped. Maybe build a frame they can set into. You can screw them to wood to keep the hens from flipping them over. Maybe use a fender washer on the screw or a bit of wood as a furring strip so the...

Some people have problems with flocks that have that kind of ratio, some don't. Usually roosters fight when they reach a certain level of maturity. Sometimes roosters fight to the death, sometimes they get along. Once they mature they will know which one is boss. Sometimes they settle this...

As long as it stays dry I prefer a dirt coop floor. Dirt does not rot or decay. Mice, rats, and snakes do not live between a wooden floor and the top of the dirt. In summer the dirt should be cooler than the air. In Minnesota in winter that floor will be warmer than your air temperatures...

The way I've taught a hen to use the nest I wanted her to was to build a couple of my nests so I could lock a hen in there if I wanted to. That has come on handy for several different things over the years, not just for this. When I catch a hen in the act of laying in a nest somewhere I don't...

With living animals you do not get guarantees. Some people on this forum have horror stories to tell about that. My flock master roosters do one of two things. They might help Mama take care of her chicks, especially if she is having problems. Most of my flock master roosters ignore the...