Breeding advice needed

[roitelet]

It's a long time since I kept Chooks and I need some help to stir the little grey cells.

I would love to have some chicks. The hen (there more arriving on Sunday) has just started to lay again. I have a Cockrel and do understand about the Birds and Bees!

The questions are;-

1. Is it too late to start chicks?

2. Can I encourage the hen to become broody?

Any help would be gratefully received. Thanks

[TPeers]

1. Not sure - the chicks would be hatched in early/mid October probably, it would therefore be December before they are eight weeks and 'hardy' enough not to need brooding, you may need to consider some heating issues if we/you get an early/hard winter.

2. Don't know - it 'just happens'.

If you have eggs hatched in Early October from hybrids, while they will be technically old enough to lay by late February you may find they don't come into lay until Easter or spring - which ever is later!

Let us know what you decide

Terry

[Birdie Wife]

I would listen to the hen - some breeds are broody almost all year round, but mostly they take a break from egg laying and brooding in the winter months. You could try to encourage them to go broody by putting down some dummy eggs and leaving them in the nest or where you would like the hen to brood. The dummy eggs could be hardboiled eggs, golfballs, or you can get plastic egg replicas made for the purpose. It's up to the hen whether she likes these or not, I bought some plastic eggs and my hens avoided them, even when I put them in a favourite laying spot!! If the hens go broody, all well and good, but if they are first time mothers they might still desert the eggs. If they are tried and tested, and they want to be broody, then I would try them on some fertile eggs (which you can collect in batches and put under the broody hen all at the same time). The number of eggs depends on the size of hen, but for a normal sized hen I reckon about 8 - 10 would be the limit. You might still be needing to provide extra warmth if the weather turns bad, as Terry says.

I'd recommend Katie Thears' book on Incubating and Rearing Chicks too - it's excellent, if a little slim, but everything you'd need to know is in there. Personally, if I knew that the hens hadn't raised a brood before, I'd be reluctant to start just now - better to wait for the spring when the weather should be better, to give the hens more of a chance to do it all right. Good on you for deciding to do it though, there's few more heart-warming sights than a mother hen with chicks. Have you considered what to do with the spare cockerels?

[roitelet]

Thanks for the advice both. Perhaps I will wait until the spring.

Spare Cockrels......We will eat them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!