28 September, 2011
I had hoped to get a decent photograph of our young Scots Grey pullets and cockerels joining the main flock today.
However, they took one look at the camera and bolted into the darkest corner of the big poultry run where they clustered into a shivering huddle.
The photo, above, was the best image I could get.
Fortunately, their integration into the flock went much better.
They’ve been living in a house and run positioned amongst the hens for a fortnight, plus I’d removed the three most senior hens to a cockerel box just before letting the youngsters out.
As a result, the remaining hens were too busy sorting out the new pecking order to bother with bullying the new members of the flock.
Equally fortunately, the Scots Grey and ISA Brown hens were as co-operative as ever when it came to photography so I did get some nice photos of chickens after all…
Hi Stonehead.
Whats the earliest and best way to sex young chics or do you have to wait until they are older?
Walter
It depends on the breed.
In theory, Scots Grey chicks are auto sexing with day-old male chicks being pale grey/black with a large pale spot on the head and females being deep black with less defined markings. However, I’ve not found the method reliable.
You get a fair idea as their feathering starts coming through: hens’ feathers are almost black barred with white, cockerels dark grey barred with white. However, there are exceptions.
It’s much more obvious between four and six weeks of age, when the cockerels tend to have more pronounced combs and the nubs of their spurs can be seen. The pullets have short, quite erect tail feathers at this point, while the cockerel’s long, flowing tail feathers take longer to grow out.
Otherwise, you have to go for vent sexing but that’s tricky unless you have a lot of practice.
They are looking good. Is this from the batch where you had the highest hatch rate since you started ? Were their still as many cockerels , I saw at least three in the picture above ? And since Orville had to be put down, will be you be selecting one of the youngesters above as a new breeding cockerel ? Or will you just sticking to the two you have know, and hopefully try to find another later one ?
Hi all!!
It’s nice to see domestic birds out in the open acting as nature intended rather than being kept in cages or factory produced.
Do you find that the cockerels get on together or is there a bit of one upmanship amongst them?
The mature cockerels live in individual pens with three or four hens. They’d fight to the death if they were in together. The young cockerels can go in with the main flock of hens until just before they hit sexual maturity, at which point we keep the best one as a replacement for the oldest cockerel and kill the rest for the freezer.
Oh good, you will be keeping a cockerel from this batch. I hope he will be a good one as Orville was. Be he one of his sons, grandsons or great grandsons. And maybe this one will inspire the hens to produce more pullets instead of cockerels !!!
Hmm, they so seem a nice breeder than most, I know with most cockerels they need ten hens or so to keep them happy.