Update on my cockerels and introducing my older hens

[Cheekychook12]

Culling just means removing from the flock. Re homing can be difficult to near impossible, so just don't fall into the trap that 'I am going to keep them all until a perfect home is found.'

Do know that there is a very real possibility that none of these roosters might work out. Cockerels are a crapshoot. And even with careful culling, and picking what you think today is the best...there is a real chance that after all that, the last one gets rotten. There is just really is no knowing.

As I said, everyone has a different idea as to how many roosters to keep. The least number of cockerels or roosters tends to work best. Most do not get the idea of sharing hens, most will want all of the hens, and will fight to do so. A lot depends on your coop/run, type and size of birds, and a lot of luck. What will work this time, may not work next time.

If you really can't cull (and a lot of people can't) you probably should not breed and hatch eggs. The cockerel problem gets worse and worse.

MRs K

As for hatching and breeding chicks, I’ll sell almost all of them before you can tell the gender, I’m the only one who has the breed nearby and they are usually high demand
I’ll keep a few that look interesting and act henny

 

[Cheekychook12]

Ok so, things seemed ok until today, nothing bad has happened but I could feel the tension in the air, and I could tell they were stressed today
So I moved Boris, cornflake and caramel into a bachelor pen, leaving Chonky and the black cockerel in the pen with the others
I will remove Boris and caramel as soon as I can from my place, to reduce tension, and then I’ll wait and see on caramel because I would like more buff chickens
Will this help?
I can already tell the tension has gone way down and the remaining cockerels are very chill and docile
I need to introduce my little frizzles, now according to the breeder, though I’m a little doubtful are nine weeks old, I need some help with gender ID on those but how easy do you think it will be to introduce all my birds? 4 grown hens, 7 pullets, 2 cockerels, and three frizzle chicks?
The gender of these frizzle guys is really messing with me, they are for sure mutt birds that look mostly like frizzle pekins but the legs are the wrong colour, the two buff/brown ones look kinda cockrely but they should have WAY bigger and redder combs by nine weeks I would have thought, they also have no wattle development but the comb size and pinkness is tripping me up.. the black one is a pullet though I’m sure
Sorry for all the questions, this is a tricky process the first time round

 

[Mrs. K]

Introducing birds successfully depends on a great deal of space, a lot of hide outs and escapes, safety zones when birds can't be followed, and a bit of a hard heart.

A lot of time, most of it is bluster. A lot of posturing, mock battles. As long as it is just feathers and dust, let it go. Sometimes it can be heartless, and sometimes things can wind up seriously injured or dead. So do this when you have 3 days to really keep an eye on things.

The old adage, "birds of a feather, flock together' is rather true. Some people can successfully mix full size birds with bantams, sometime it does not work regardless what you do.

So the question is, are they all those frizzle? If so, and you do have adequate space, and have it set up as a cluttered run. Probably not too much problems.

If it is a mix of full size and frizzles - might be much more of a problem.

When you say

think it will be to introduce all my birds? 4 grown hens, 7 pullets, 2 cockerels, and three frizzle chicks?

Do none of these birds know each other? Or are some of these birds already together as a 'flock'? That too will make a difference. I see you can post pictures, let us see your coop, and run. Otherwise we are just guessing.

Mrs K

 

[Cheekychook12]

Introducing birds successfully depends on a great deal of space, a lot of hide outs and escapes, safety zones when birds can't be followed, and a bit of a hard heart.

A lot of time, most of it is bluster. A lot of posturing, mock battles. As long as it is just feathers and dust, let it go. Sometimes it can be heartless, and sometimes things can wind up seriously injured or dead. So do this when you have 3 days to really keep an eye on things.

The old adage, "birds of a feather, flock together' is rather true. Some people can successfully mix full size birds with bantams, sometime it does not work regardless what you do.

So the question is, are they all those frizzle? If so, and you do have adequate space, and have it set up as a cluttered run. Probably not too much problems.

If it is a mix of full size and frizzles - might be much more of a problem.

When you say

Do none of these birds know each other? Or are some of these birds already together as a 'flock'? That too will make a difference. I see you can post pictures, let us see your coop, and run. Otherwise we are just guessing.

Mrs K

I’ll get some pictures today, the setup is very messy at the moment because we haven’t moved the pen into the permanent place yet, because we have a friend who is a worker, he had a medical issue which meant the levelling of ground was delayed, as well as getting my fence fixed so they can free range, ideally I would have let them all free range together to get to know each other, because the run is a bit small, and I didn’t want to build much clutter and stuff without the pen being in its actual spot, we’re currently moving it around on the lawn every week or so
When I first tried to introduce my cockerels to the older hens they fought pretty viciously, I understand that chickens fighting to some degree is needed to solve the pecking order, but they wouldn’t back down, so I separated them before there was serious harm, they get along better now but it’s still tricky
All the chickens are the same breed of bantams, but the the younger ones are a bit smaller at the moment, the frizzles are also bantams but I don’t think they are purebred, but still should be the same size as I saw the breeding flock they came from
Should I just wait to introduce them after the construction of the fence and once the ground where the chicken pen is is actually ready?
I do worry that if I only end up with one frizzled hen, the others will pick on her for being frizzled

 

[ChickenWonder734]

How'd you end up with five cockerels in the first place? I definitely don't want to fall into the I-have-a-ton-of-roosters-and-I-don't-know-which-ones-to-keep pit!