Rural Gardening: Poultry Birds and the Bees, 1 by mevnmart

mevnmart wrote:
A friend told me those blood spots meant the eggs were fertilized, and that's what you look for when you candle. Hmmm...okay, so that's just a normal thing for some hens?

The larger bantam rooster (Buffy - I thought he was a girl at first) is about 3/4 the size of most of my hens. I caught him mounting a polish, which is about 3/4 size my regular hens. So that kind of worked out for him. She didn't seem to mind so much, although I felt bad about him yanking on her afro!

The ducks are not in/by water - we take them out periodically to swim in a kiddie pool, but we've kept them in the coop and run with the chickens ever since one of them got brutalized by a snapping turtle in our pond (he's fine now).

My tiny banty rooster (he is one of my smallest birds altogether) is definitely still ruler of the roost (Buffy backs down to him, though he's twice his size). I haven't caught him mating yet, though his new thing is to fly up on our shoulders and crow. I think he's trying to dominate us to establish that we're below him on the pecking order or, if I take a shot at critiquing the little dance he does before he flies up to my shoulder, he may be flirting. He looks a bit like a bantam leghorn? Is there such a thing? I've added a pic of him from about two months ago. I'll have to take new updated pics now that all of my hens have big floppy combs!

I'll keep an eye on the ducks. If it looks like it's dangerous for Rorschach (the girl), maybe I'll rehome HER. Would that work? Or will five boys be a problem whether there's a girl or not?