Do you keep the males with the hens year long?

[TinderSnap]

Hello everyone!

I'm brand new to the backyard poultry scene, and I'm excited to get started. I have read some books, and reviewed a TON of stuff from this forum, but there are a couple things I still don't 100% get.

When you have your larger groups of hens, do you keep your males with them year round? If you do so, that means you are eating fertilized eggs, right? Is that a problem?

When I'm designing my coup, should I include some separate cages for males, or is being in such close proximity to the females bad for them?

 

[OneLostHen]

If your male to female ratio is balanced, and they have all been raised together from chicks, you should have no problems keeping them all housed together.
That's how my set up is. I have 16 total, including my 3 boys. They were raised together and haven't fought yet. And I hope my ladies eggs are fertile. I see the boys doing their duty quite often. Lol.
And it is the same for chicken eggs as quail. You can eat fertilized eggs just fine.
Hope this helps any!

 

[happyhens1972]

Yes, you keep your roos in with your girls all year round and yes, you then eat fertilised eggs. This is the absolute norm. The eggs would not start to develop into an embryo until a broody hen (or an incubator) warmed them up for a good 24 to 36 hours so as long as you collect your eggs daily, you won't be cracking open your breakfast eggs to find something other than what you would expect!

As for your reference to 'males'....as in plural? If you keep more than one roo with your girls, you need a LOT of space and at least 10 girls per roo. If you keep two boys in close proximity to girls, they will fight, sometimes to the death, over them. You can sometimes happily keep batchelor groups of boys together but this only works if they cannot see the girls.

It would certainly be tantamount to cruelty keeping boys in a seperate cage within sight of the girls, as their hormones and natural instincts would be raging and unfulfilled.

Your most harmonious choice is one roo in the coop with a nice 10 to 12 girls and plenty of space for them to forage....or alternatively, no roo at all if you don't plan to breed them. A male is not necessary for pets, eggs or meat, just for breeding x

 

[TinderSnap]

Thank you very much HappyHens, I especially appreciate such a complete answer!

Do you (or anyone on the forum), believe it would be safe and humane to keep groups of 5+ females and 1 male in cages adjacent to another?

It would be nice to have more than one male for diversity's sake, but I don't want to stress out the birds. The coup I was hoping to build would be mainly housed in a shed, so the birds would all be able to see each other.

 

[dc3085]

Hello everyone!

I'm brand new to the backyard poultry scene, and I'm excited to get started. I have read some books, and reviewed a TON of stuff from this forum, but there are a couple things I still don't 100% get.

When you have your larger groups of hens, do you keep your males with them year round? If you do so, that means you are eating fertilized eggs, right? Is that a problem?

When I'm designing my coup, should I include some separate cages for males, or is being in such close proximity to the females bad for them?

There have been a lot of egg studies done, there is no difference nutritionally between fertilized and unfertilized eggs.

If you are raising a lot of coturnix and need to separate male chicks out for slaughter or sale, you will want to place them out of sight of the girls. Otherwise they'll start crowing constantly, and they wake up around 3-4 am. With your breeders it isn't really a problem.

If your male to female ratio is balanced, and they have all been raised together from chicks, you should have no problems keeping them all housed together.
That's how my set up is. I have 16 total, including my 3 boys. They were raised together and haven't fought yet. And I hope my ladies eggs are fertile. I see the boys doing their duty quite often. Lol.
And it is the same for chicken eggs as quail. You can eat fertilized eggs just fine.
Hope this helps any!

Space is key to making prosperity last. I've had them start fighting as late as 9-10 months old though. In hobby sized cages like most of use it's difficult to have it work out with 100% success.

Thank you very much HappyHens, I especially appreciate such a complete answer!

Do you (or anyone on the forum), believe it would be safe and humane to keep groups of 5+ females and 1 male in cages adjacent to another?

It would be nice to have more than one male for diversity's sake, but I don't want to stress out the birds. The coup I was hoping to build would be mainly housed in a shed, so the birds would all be able to see each other.

That's fine as long as they can't fight through the divider.

One male can keep up to seven hens fertile. Once bred fertility lasts 5+ days, so feel free to put more than five if you want to.

 

[TinderSnap]

Thanks for the great responses! This will help me out a bunch in the coming months. Thanks so much dc308!