The Omega Rocks: The Last & Ultimate Barred Plymouth Rock Flock

[EmmaDonovan]

The kids will be 4 weeks old Thursday. The boys are getting super long legs on them, had to raise the feeder again.
In assessing them, I realized that the two white-banded boys from Pen #3 are never up front. One is the small one and his brother isn't much larger. I did catch them both and as they wiggled and yelled, I saw that neither of their combs are as nice as most of the other males. I know Jamie said it would be good to pick one from that pen #3 and one from Pen #1 to go with the pullets from Pen #7, but even now, I don't think those white band boys will make the cut. I could be wrong and they could catch up, but they don't have the same friendly personality of the other males. All the pullets have black bands. Their two brothers (or half brothers) are large boys. Pen #1 hatched out three males, purple bands, that are very friendly and always right out front asking for attention. I will be tempted to keep one of those from Pen 7, though they are more closely related (same sire) as the four pullets, but there is a lot of time for front runners to fall back and vice versa. Here are some progress pictures for you:
View attachment 4104874View attachment 4104875View attachment 4104876View attachment 4104877View attachment 4104878View attachment 4104879View attachment 4104880View attachment 4104881View attachment 4104882View attachment 4104883View attachment 4104884View attachment 4104885View attachment 4104886

Oh my gosh they're adorable. Loved your video yesterday! Thanks for the update.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

The kids will be 4 weeks old Thursday. The boys are getting super long legs on them, had to raise the feeder again.
In assessing them, I realized that the two white-banded boys from Pen #3 are never up front. One is the small one and his brother isn't much larger. I did catch them both and as they wiggled and yelled, I saw that neither of their combs are as nice as most of the other males. I know Jamie said it would be good to pick one from that pen #3 and one from Pen #1 to go with the pullets from Pen #7, but even now, I don't think those white band boys will make the cut. I could be wrong and they could catch up, but they don't have the same friendly personality of the other males. All the pullets have black bands. Their two brothers (or half brothers) are large boys. Pen #1 hatched out three males, purple bands, that are very friendly and always right out front asking for attention. I will be tempted to keep one of those from Pen 7, though they are more closely related (same sire) as the four pullets, but there is a lot of time for front runners to fall back and vice versa. Here are some progress pictures for you:
View attachment 4104874View attachment 4104875View attachment 4104876View attachment 4104877View attachment 4104878View attachment 4104879View attachment 4104880View attachment 4104881View attachment 4104882View attachment 4104883View attachment 4104884View attachment 4104885View attachment 4104886

They remind me of little dinosaurs. They are so cute.

 

[speckledhen]

What darlings!!!

Oh my gosh they're adorable. Loved your video yesterday! Thanks for the update.

They remind me of little dinosaurs. They are so cute.

They're certainly entertaining..and scruffy at this stage. I picked up one of the purple banded boys, one that is especially friendly. He literally stretched his neck into the crook of mine and settled down. Personable little things. Wonder if there will be a "little tyrant" in this group to remind me of our late Hector and terrorize the grown hens, LOL

 

[1muttsfan]

I would only caution that you not judge them too early. Some are not going to develop as quickly as others, that doesn't mean that in the end they don't turn into great birds.

And maybe just a reminder that genetic diversity is worth consideration. You were so fortunate to find a breeder who is so helpful in terms of giving you options.

 

[speckledhen]

I would only caution that you not judge them too early. Some are not going to develop as quickly as others, that doesn't mean that in the end they don't turn into great birds.

And maybe just a reminder that genetic diversity is worth consideration. You were so fortunate to find a breeder who is so helpful in terms of giving you options.

Mary, I'm not choosing anything right now, only noting observations though you are correct. I'm sorry if I sounded like I am jumping the gun. I hope the two white band boys from Pen #3 turn out better than expected, of course, because I do want to choose from the pens he suggested. Time will tell. Even if I don't think those two are up to par later on, I will have five others to choose from. Genetic diversity is good and Jamie is a godsend in being so available and offering me suggestions! I've changed my mind a lot in the past. With Atlas, I had no other choices since he was the only one in a group of five chicks and he produced males better than himself when put over the Stukel hens such as the stunning Apollo. If Apollo had not been a dwarf gene carrier, he would never have left this place (with disclosure of his dwarf gene, of course).
You know me, I am so enamoured with my roosters, it will be hard to let any of them go! I will never be a truly ruthless culler, a hard-hearted breeder, because of that, my shortcoming.

 

[speckledhen]

I just came back from the barn, doing a leg band check. Since all four pullets are from the black banded Pen #7, I just removed their bands entirely and won't replace them, no real reason to do that anymore. We did band-check on all the chicks except the two males with white bands. I found them hanging out in the back corner, trying to look inconspicuous. I had to herd them out and then catch them both, got a good look at them again. They don't want to be handled at all. The cure for that, generally, is to handle them more, against all their protests.
The smallest one, the late hatcher, is still the smallest, though his brother, who acts just like him, seems to have grown a bit. Bigger brother acts just like he does, protests the entire time you try to hold him, but we saw that his comb is not bad, just not as textbook as others at this age, may be missing a 5th point. I gave my husband the Mission Impossible of taming them both down some, which he seems to be an expert at, LOL. He has a way with all animals.
One thing that may be a factor in the end is how easy each is to manage, to catch and work with. That was the only issue I really had with Hector all his life, his panicky freak-outs when we had to pick him up and do anything with him that required holding. He just went nuts when his feet left the ground and had to be heavily restrained; Jill is exactly the same way. The polar opposite is big old Bash. He loves being held, eats it up, asks for it. He's like a huge teddy bear with spurs. I don't require that, but I want to be able to handle my roosters when their health requires it such as spur trimming, checking for mites, etc. These two males will likely calm down with more handling. I'd love to make all things equal as much as I can for the final selections so that a stunning male is not kicked out of the running simply because of his aversion to being handled. A large rooster like Hector is pretty darn hard to keep hold of and these will likely be just as studly as he was. The others males are all up in your face all the time, curious and energetic and unless something changes later, they shouldn't be a problem in that regard. BUT, change it could, as we all know.
Question for my experts here (thanks in advance). If/when the males begin to be hormonal and are a problem for the girls, should I just remove them all into a separate pen until I pick my final two and then at that point, put them back in with the four pullets? I don't want to leave one in wiht them, which separates him from his "brothers", making it nigh to impossible to put them back together. We have weeks and weeks before that happens, of course. How would you do that, not knowing which will stay and which will go yet? I've never tried doing it this way, but I now have that extra pen to use as a bachelor pen and can do that.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I start by removing the worse and work my way down. You could just observe long enough to get a feeling for who's better. I always find the best rooster tend to be on the bottom of the rooster pecking order. I generally can add rooster to the pen without problems for a week or two before they get comfortable in the new situation and start making troubles for the newcomers.

 

[speckledhen]

That makes sense, thank you, Lisa.