The Chicken Codex – Breeding a Better Bird, Part 2: Planning for Breeding Season

Reader Contribution by Jeanette Beranger
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Diversity Makes for a Stronger Flock

You do not get ready for breeding season by simply putting your roos and hens together. In this chapter I want to start with the basics for newbies. Novice breeders typically get started with their birds from one source such as a hatchery or a breeder. This leaves you a bit limited for diversity but I figure everyone has to start somewhere. At some point you will need to locate unrelated birds to help get diversity into the flock. For now we’ll assume you have sourced your birds from one place and don’t have any pedigree or baseline information on them beyond the breeder’s name. You probably don’t have many birds and are trying to decide how to begin. We’ll start with numbers. Normally I like to see at least five hens for each rooster. Fewer than that often leads to hens being over bred and pestered. If you have less than five, keep watch to make sure they are not being injured by an overzealous roo. You should have a pretty good idea of who’s staying or who’s going by weeding out poor specimens or birds that may be aggressive. For our flock we used selection techniques originally described in an amazing book known as The Call of the Hen by Walter Hogan. It was first published in 1914 but just about everything still holds true by his selection methods. He was a brilliant poultryman whose book is easy to follow. You can find a free copy on line or you can visit The Livestock Conservancy’s website for a modern overview of the techniques and images.  Of course there’s some great information in the beginning of the American Poultry Association’s Standard of Perfection (if you don’t have one…get one.) Later in the year when it’s time to assess your 2017 hatch, we’ll go into much greater detail about basic selection techniques and help you figure out what’s going on under the feathers.

My cull birds were decided back in December but I did not make the final cuts until just recently. We’ve already weeded out those that are not best when compared to the APA standard so the last thing we look at is personality. In November and December many roosters are not quite as actively amorous as they are becoming now. With “love” on their mind I think it’s important to make sure they are gentlemen with the ladies. Proper courting behavior includes siding up to the hen and flapping a wing in a gesture to see if she is receptive to breeding. Males we find that aggressively chase hens, jump on their backs, and pull feathers out of their head or neck is not what we want to propagate. Sometimes we will be a bit more lenient to bad behavior only in the beginning as young cockerels figure out how to make the hens happy. If they consistently act aggressive, they won’t be in the breeding flock for long, if at all.

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