Roosters, Roosters, everywhere!

When breeding chickens, the problem is what to do with the roosters. Assuming that you get about as many roosters as hens, people, whether breeding for show or pets, mostly want hens. This year I have had a super abundance of chickens but managed to sell almost all of my hens, which leaves the roosters. Because roosters fight, and I have rescued several very bloody losers, I realized that I had to keep the roosters separate. In the past I have tried to sell all the roosters off after the spring show. Those that I can't sell at the show, Craig's list, or my web site: sunsetseramas.com, I take to auction. But last year, after the fall show, and after posting some on Craig's list, I didn't want to take the roosters that remained to the auction because in the fall they don't sell well to the general population. I hate to keep chickens in cages inside my shop, but that is the only place that I have to keep the roosters separate. And so they lived through the winter in my shop.

To get them outside this winter, I purchased several small chicken tractors, or pens from Craig's list. But that only took care of about five roosters, ( these small tractors did work out for breeding pairs and broody hens though). Then I read that you could put roosters together and they wouldn't fight if there were no hens around. So I thought I would try that. The picture above shows my "Rooster Yard", and its true, the roosters don't fight. So all the roosters went into that pen. Then the roosters that I wanted to keep I put in another tractor. And then there were some roosters that were raised apart from the others and they went into another tractor. And I have some in the shop also; a new rooster I bought, and the rest were my "best" roosters, that I didn't want to lose in case of terribly inclement weather, or accidents, etc.

After putting together my "rooster yard" I was ready to put the roosters in it the coming weekend. Before that happened we had a terrible windstorm with very high winds which picked up the ten by sixteen foot rooster yard, spun it up in the air and crashed it about forty feet away in the corner of my lot and trashed the whole thing into a crumpled mess. The tarp was still attached and filled up with water as we had

an almost record rainfall that twenty-four hour period.

That was really discouraging. My son came and helped me cut the tarp loose and straighten out the bent pipe and we placed it back in the same location and put it together again. Why the same location you ask? That is the only place I have that is somewhat sheltered from the winds, and high winds like that are not uncommon, but I did not expect the whole thing to blow. I ordered some shed tie downs that I am hoping will help keep the pen in place but I think that the tarp will act like a sail, and the tie downs will not help. The only thing I can think of is to tie the tarp to another set of tie downs in the ground, instead of to the pen. and then if the high winds come just the tarp will blow and not the pen. The wind is always a problem here. That is the one thing I don't like about living in this beautiful place.

The chicken tractors have been moved into the natural shrubbery and were not affected by the wind. The one that is placed out into the windy area is a great pen and I wish I could get someone to build another one for me (I tried to find someone but no one is interested). You can see that it is covered by a clear tarp and it is very warm inside, sort of like a green house, and the tarp sort of clings to the shape of the pen, it is tied down with zip ties. There is a roost and a nest box in the back.

The roosters in this pen seem very satisfied.

I wish I could let my roosters roam but I have two terrier type dogs that are always intent on getting the chickens, and there are always owls and hawks, so unfortunately the roosters have to be caged.

King George stays home!

Another poultry show - my second, at Stevenson, Washington. This is the first time I have been able to go in the fall, because they moved the date up from November to October. In November there is usually black ice or snow or some other weather problem in the coast range that I have to drive through to get to Stevenson. I don't drive in hazardous conditions anymore. I just stay home.

The problem with October though, is that the chickens, not just mine but most, were molting, and so the chickens that I had picked out to put in the show were in no condition to go

.

The one beautiful hen that I thought I would enter appeared in the yard about two weeks before the show with a baby chick. That was a surprise. I thought I might separate her from the chick in time for the show but she screamed so hard when I tried to remove her from the cage that you would think I was torturing her by pulling off her appendages, so I gave up. To this day both she and her chick have labeled me as THE ENEMY. So she stayed home. I picked out a superb rooster, but he was crazy afraid of me when I brought him in and put him in a cage, also he was heavy, or 19.2 ounces, which is the maximum weight. But I thought I could tame him down and maybe bring his weight down. But that didn't happen. So I thought I would bring Bug, my little golden rooster, who is semi-tame but then I remembered he was too small and didn't weigh enough. The bottom weight for acceptance is 12.8 for a rooster. So again, about three days before the show I went out in the yard and found a small black and red young rooster and I thought I would take him. He was remarkably tame. But he was still in the process of growing out new neck feathers. And I also took Honey, my hen that was tame, for the Table Top contest because I knew she would not fly away. I also picked up a hen from the yard after deciding she might just be the right shape. She was in the right weight range. I did not have any great expectations.

At this show was a real Serama judge, and TableTop Judging. Most of us Serama owners were not familiar with the judging process for our chickens and it was a real learning experience. It was also fun. There were a lot of beautiful Serama there.

The cage judging is for ABA. The judge looks at all the chickens in the cages and if they come in from first to fifth, he writes the number on the card attached to their cages. White earlobes mean disqualification, as do over or under weights, green legs. wry tails, and etc. you can check with your ABA book. Some things like wrinkled ear lobes or squirrel tail are defects but not disqualification. I thought white earlobes meant the white enamel ones on some chickens but it only means a little or a lot of white on a red earlobe. So my rooster and my hen Honey were disqualified right away! Surprise! But the other hen received a mark of 4, which I thought was very good since there were so many chickens there and lots that didn't get any number at all.

For Table Top judging the only disqualification is over or under weight. So that meant I could put Honey in as I had planned. Table Top Judging is where the judge sits at a table with a little piece of carpet in front of him. You come up to the table with your chicken and when the judge is ready you toss your chicken in the air just a little bit so she has to flap her wings twice before she lands on the table. Usually this puts the chicken on alert and it can show its form better.

To qualify for the finals your chicken has to earn 70 or more points. I decided not to enter Honey and entered the other hen that came in fourth in ABA. She earned a 71 in TableTop and qualified for the finals but did not make it to the top in the finals.

So I have to say it was really worth going, I learned a lot, talked to a lot of people, sold a few chickens, traded one for two. I enjoyed myself and was glad I went.

The last time I posted was after the April show. Now its time for the fall show on October 15-16! What happened in between then and now? We went from heavy solid rain, which lasted to the end of June, to the hottest and most sunny summer I have experienced since moving here. And I was busy all the time hatching chicks. I had a very poor hatch this year! Lots of non-fertile and dead-in-shell.

I always take about 24 eggs from the "yard" to put in my incubators. I may not know who the hens are but I am sure of the rooster since there is just one "yard rooster" at a time in the yard. There are cockerels in the yard also, but they generally aren't ready to breed at this time.

Then I put breeding pairs together to try and get certain traits that I want to see.

From the "Yard" I hatched the best rooster that I have had yet, and I also hatched a black cockerel that looks just like his father. It takes a while for chickens to show their type, and in the beginning I didn't think this black rooster was very good but as he grew he got a lot better. I sold him wondering if I was making a mistake or not. Anyway the wheaten cockerel pictured here is the new cock on the block. He has really good type but he is very wild. I was thinking of taking him to the show but I don't think he will be calm enough by that time. This is an ongoing problem. I need to make sure that all chicks go through a taming process before they are placed in the yard. Usually they go from the "baby brooder" in my computer room, to the bigger brooder cage in my kitchen, and then to the yard where they are placed in a cage in the hutch with a heater. That way they can be introduced to the other chickens with out being bullied and in about three weeks I move them out of this cage directly into the hutch and yard.

I really don't put any time into training and posing my chickens. I am totally lax in that area and need to do better.

The hen I am going to take to the show is "Honey". She is not spectacular but a good type, and also very tame. How did she get that way? I don't know!!

At The Poultry Show

May 1st

It has been raining pretty steadily up until two days ago. Thursday the 28th of April , the heavy rain turned to snow and the temperature dropped to 34 degrees. The snow coated the trees and looked very pretty for a winter scene. I did make it to the Pacific Northwest Poultry show in Stevenson Washington though. It was held April 16th and 17th.

I entered two pullets, Black Betty and Blondie, 11.6 and 10 ounces respectively. I knew that they were not perfect but I thought I should just go ahead and enter my birds to get experience and maybe some feedback. It turns out that they won first and second place in their class of Serama pullets, although there wasn't much competition. And no tabletop judging either. I was definitely not ready for that.

I really enjoyed the show. I love looking at all types of poultry and there were about a thousand birds entered there.

So now I am ready to make more pretty birds. I haven't really produced a show quality rooster yet so that would be nice if that happens.

The sun shone last Friday and Saturday with a minimum of rain. Halleluia!!

Home Sweet Home

Winter - Oh! My! Here in Nehalem we get all kinds of weather - very changeable. High winds, heavy rains, flooding, and sometime nice warm weather and sometimes record cold spells.

A few weeks ago we had such heavy rains that there was flooding in several towns, and my chicken yard for my laying hens was three inches under water. I have never seen this before. The chickens were walking around in the water looking very puzzled, they would put their heads down to peck at something and then stop and go nnnnnnhhh. I should have taken a picture but I was sort of in shock. I opened the gate to the banty yard which was on higher ground and they made their way into this and spent the day with their smaller cousins. I hope this doesn't happen again, the water was up to the floor of their chicken house.

I feel really good about the Bantam hutch though. Twelve feet long and five feet high and raised about three and a half feet above the ground, the legs buried about three feet into the dirt. No high winds will blow this away, nor floods reach the floor. And the heated roost, plus heated water and food inside, plus a heat emitting lamp - no light produced - in case of freezing weather, makes me feel good knowing my small birds are really secure.

The bantams have a home sweet home

NO COLD CHICKENS HERE!

I am glad I built a heated roost for my chickens. We have had some temperatures in the high twenties and it is good to know that my chickens aren't stressed trying to keep warm at night. They appear very chipper in the cold mornings as if the cold doesn't bother them at all.

My heated roost is the length of my giant chicken hutch. The roost is a12 foot long 2x4. I wrapped a twenty three foot reptile heating cable around the 2x4, spacing between wires was about three and a half inches. I secured this into place and covered with a strip of space blanket to cover the 2x4, stapled this on, taking care not to puncture the heating cable and then covered with an inexpensive strip of indoor outdoor carpet, and stapled this on also. My little chickens can rest upon this roost and do- all lined up in a row.

I also have a ceramic heat source for the pigeon waterer I use inside the hutch, and that works also - no freezing.

If the temperature goes into the low twenties or lower, I have a 150 watt heat emitter hanging inside the hutch to add a little more heat.

You have to be careful with those heat lamps, emitters or heaters. I read that several fires had been started in urban coops because of heat lamps.

The reason I like heat emitters is that they don't emit light, and that makes things more natural. They are also supposed to be safer. I was using one inside a metal tub of chicks, suspended on a bar inside the tub. I had been using it for months. The emitter was screwed into a porcelain socket with metal dome. I use wood shavings in the tub as bedding for the chicks. One day I opened the door to the shop where I keep my chicks and the place was full of smoke, it was so thick I could hardly see. Uh Oh! I thought, where is this coming from? when I went over to open a window I saw it was boiling out one of the tubs. I quickly disconnected it, opened all the rest of the windows and door including all the overhead doors to the garage. It took awhile for things to air out. I found that the porcelain part had fallen out of the metal dome and onto the shavings. The metal dome was still suspended in place. The emitter in the porcelain socket came to rest on the shavings. The shavings were charcoal black and some were glowing.

The good news is that the chicks were fine - I don't see how - but they were and are. If I had not been home and gone out to the shop when I did, I think it would have been another story.

Love the One Your With and leg bands

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!