Well, I have had chickens for a little over a year. I got my first Seramas in September, 09. I have learned a whole lot about chickens since then and I am still learning. I am pretty successful at hatching eggs. I have about 50 chickens now, most of them I have bred myself. I am now doing selective breeding. I purchased three more roosters and one hen, breeding for type of course and also size since my original chickens which had good type, are very large. I was going to enter one of my hens in a show but she weighed too much. At the time I was breeding her and feeding her very well. I could try to get her weight down by being very careful about what she eats but the shows are over for a while.
There are several good articles on the web about the sex life of chickens. "Chickens Complicated Sex Life." in particular. Apparently the hen can expel the sperm of an unwanted rooster, which explains why many of the eggs I get from planned breeding are infertile at first. Then I guess things settle down and the hen accepts the sperm of the rooster she is with. You remember the words to that song ? "If you cant be with the one you love, then love the one your with."
I have a silver wheaten rooster that is very attractive. His daughter was the hen I wanted to enter in the show. I bred them together to see if I could get the same color - the father as well as the daughter, and I got nine chicks. They do not have adult plumage yet but it will be interesting to see what comes from this breeding.
I also bred two of my smaller chickens: Charlie chicken, a 9 ounce rooster, and Ms. Butterscotch, a small A type hen. The chicks did not seem to be smaller chicks, so we will see how they grow. I did get a few very small chicks, but not necessarily from the smaller chickens. One of my original hens, Belle, does not produce good type chicks but she seems to produce the smaller ones, I think. Gathering eggs at random from the big chicken yard - at the time I believed she was the only hen to lay as the others were young pullets - I have gotten some very small chicks. Singer, the singing chick pictured above with his or her purple leg bands , is about three weeks old now and the size of chicks about three days old. I am keeping a pictorial record of Singer, a Belle-Cocopop rooster cross, and several other chicks, primarily for color development from chick to adult.
It is really important to be able to identify the chicks parents, and if you have a small breeding program like I do, all the chicks go in the same brooder. How can you tell them apart? Most all have similar color groupings, and the colors change rapidly. They are so tiny, it is impossible to find a leg band or other marking device that you can visually identify at a glance. After many trials I have found that using 1/4 colored rubber bands, and placing four on one leg (one color identifying each parent or parental couple) works. You need four because one or more will fall off until they are about two weeks old, and you have to put them back on. The ones remaining on the leg will give you enough identity to replace the ones that came off. After about two weeks they stay on.
It is winter here now. Freezing temperatures! Have you tried the Thermo- Cube? a small plugin that turns on heat lamps, etc at 35 degrees and turns them off at 45 degrees.? A very helpful device.
Well, I have to check on the chickens now, on this very cold morning. Brrrrr!
