Pekin Bantam breeding advice

[PuddleEndChicken]

So I've picked out one of my pekin bantam ladies (pretty millefleur colour and very healthy) for breeding this year with our only pekin bantam male. She has been one of his "preferred" ladies in the bantam flock over the last year.

So I was going to pen them up together this week and see what happened but........................guess what the last few days she's gone broody and is sitting on NOTHING or other bantams' eggs if she can get them.

So my questions are:

• how do I get her to lay ? If I penned her up in a run with an empty nesting box would she start laying ? Or do I have to "break" her broodiness before we can get started ?
• Would it break the broodiness and get her laying if I pen her up with the rooster ?
• Can I assume she her eggs are already fertile by him (sole rooster) because they've been in the same flock and quite close over the last year
• Is it bad to take the rooster away from the rest of the flock whilst I do this ?

Grateful for your advice, thank you.

 

[AndyCap]

So I've picked out one of my pekin bantam ladies (pretty millefleur colour and very healthy) for breeding this year with our only pekin bantam male. She has been one of his "preferred" ladies in the bantam flock over the last year.

So I was going to pen them up together this week and see what happened but........................guess what the last few days she's gone broody and is sitting on NOTHING or other bantams' eggs if she can get them.

So my questions are:

• how do I get her to lay ? If I penned her up in a run with an empty nesting box would she start laying ? Or do I have to "break" her broodiness before we can get started ?
• Would it break the broodiness and get her laying if I pen her up with the rooster ?
• Can I assume she her eggs are already fertile by him (sole rooster) because they've been in the same flock and quite close over the last year
• Is it bad to take the rooster away from the rest of the flock whilst I do this ?

Grateful for your advice, thank you.

In my humble opinion

• She wont lay until her broodiness breaks. She wont start laying until she is fully done being broody.
• No, easiest way to get her over it is to either give her eggs or day olds to raise, or to separate her completely with food and water and "break" her. kind of like a separation pen just for her.
• You can check if eggs are fertile by checking for a spot in the yolk with a halo, see this post for great information (https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-to-tell-a-fertile-vs-infertile-egg-pictures.16008/), But depending on how many hens you have they should be viable.
• Depends on your setup really. If they are free ranging then yes. How many hens do you have? A rooster can fertilize a lot of hens, we used to do 1 rooster per 8-10 birds when breeding and all of the eggs laid were fertile.

 

[Mosey2003]

• how do I get her to lay ? If I penned her up in a run with an empty nesting box would she start laying ? Or do I have to "break" her broodiness before we can get started ?

Just moving or penning her differently will almost surely NOT work. You need to break her broodiness. Best method is to put her in a cage on wire flooring up off the floor so that air flows all around her undersides. Leave her in that at least three days, a week if you want to be terribly sure.

• Would it break the broodiness and get her laying if I pen her up with the rooster ?

Nope.

• Can I assume she her eggs are already fertile by him (sole rooster) because they've been in the same flock and quite close over the last year

Yes, if you know which ones are hers you can try incubating all of them from the last two weeks.

• Is it bad to take the rooster away from the rest of the flock whilst I do this ?

You shouldn't be doing that because it won't help. However, moving a rooster around is typically less stressful than moving hens in and out.

 

[PuddleEndChicken]

@AndyCap , @Mosey2003 , thanks both for your advice. So I've now got my bantam lady penned up with the rooster in a small run in the corner of the barn. The rooster was taken away from his 15 ladies but after a day he doesn't seem very bothered and nor do they. They are all roaming round the barn and he's in the pen in the same barn with his bantam lady that I want to breed from.

In the pen there's no nesting box etc, just a pole to roost on and food etc. The bantam lady has stopped being broody the last 5 days and they are both walking around the pen together and he's paying attention to her with food etc - I've observed them for a while each day but haven't seen them mating yet but assume it's happening.

So the bantam lady seems happy with him but she hasn't started laying - how many days after stopping being broody does it take before they start to lay again typically ? In the months before I penned them up I've seen her mate with this same rooster and I've also seen her sitting in the nesting boxes so I assume she was laying previously.

Then the next question is, if she does manage to lay a clutch (and I assume/check that the eggs are fertile) at what point do I let the rooster go back to the main flock and leave her to keep laying ? Could I put another hen in with her to keep her company (if I could tell the eggs apart) ? Should I put a nest box in ?

At that point I would hope she would sit on a clutch, but if she doesn't that's not a big deal because I have couple of other bantams that are broody at the moment who could sit on the eggs.

Thanks for your help with this.

 

[Mosey2003]

Takes at least a week, sometimes two. Once she starts laying, if you're wanting her to set, definitely give her a nestbox.

As soon as she's laid about how many you want you can remove the male. She'll stay fertilized at least a week after, usually two.

 

[PuddleEndChicken]

Takes at least a week, sometimes two. Once she starts laying, if you're wanting her to set, definitely give her a nestbox.

As soon as she's laid about how many you want you can remove the male. She'll stay fertilized at least a week after, usually two.

That's really helpful thanks, hopefully she'll restart laying within 2 weeks...I'll report back !

 

[PuddleEndChicken]

@AndyCap @Mosey2003 just to update this thread, I left her with the rooster and no nest box and she stopped being broody. After 2 weeks (as you said) she started to lay and is now laying an egg a day and so far has a clutch of 5 which she is very protective of.

Once she feels the clutch is large enough I assume she'll start to sit. I think I'll leave the rooster in with her until then as he's currently very supportive to her and is also checking her eggs !! Thanks for your advice, will update again soon....

 

[PuddleEndChicken]

@AndyCap @Mosey2003

Hello ! Just to update you, we took out the rooster, she kept laying and now she's laid a clutch of about 16 eggs but she's still not sitting. She goes on the nest for a while (probably to lay) and then comes off again. Sits on the eggs at night I think (no roosting bar in the cage).

She just paces her broody cage and sometimes calls to the rooster (not the father of these chicks, another rooster that's in the main run now) and pulls at his feathers if he comes near the cage. She seems to want to join the main flock.

So my questions:

• What can I do now to get her broody again ? She was broody a few months back (I broke her broodiness to get her to lay, see further up this thread) but now she doesn't seem to want to start again ? She just adds one new egg each day ?
• How long are the eggs viable if she's not sitting yet ? Some of them are 15 or more days old now ?
• If she's still laying I'm not sure if they are still fertile (can candle) as rooster has been away quite a few days now
• If she's sitting at night but not in the day does that mean the eggs have started to incubate but are being left to get cold in the day and therefore won't grow ?
• Should I hedge my bets by taking away a few of the eggs in the pile and putting them under another broody or putting them in an incubator ? Or if I reduce the egg pile will that just delay her brooding ?

Would appreciate your thoughts.....thank you !

 

[Mosey2003]

I'm not one to ask about all that, personally I hate broodies and won't ever let them try. The one time I did, she killed the two that managed to hatch.

If you really want chicks, I suggest using an incubator.

 

[Mosey2003]

Giving it more thought, I can probably answer your questions though. 15 days is really pushing it, anything over 14 is not gonna be viable for long. You can take some away, that shouldn't affect her decisions. If she's only sitting at night, they're not gonna make it. You could try to candle them and see if any have developed and died. All you can usually do to encourage one to brood is to make the nest area dark and private with curtains or the like.