Ok,,,so Misfit sits in the nest,,,and I find a green egg under her after she leaves. I only have 2 aracaunas and never see 'Lil Puff' in the nest, so I assume the green egg is from Misfits, right? But we stopped getting green eggs and Misfit started looking real funny with her feathers going all over down her backside and her tail sticking straight up and just plumb acting strange. I'm sure you all know where I'm going with this. I wondered... a Roo??? Naw, she is only 7 months old, follows me all over the place and doesn't crow.
Well, I found her on top of one of the hens..Yikes!!!!,,,She's a he!!!!!!!! And 'He' has that deformity of his beak and isn't suppose to breed because it's genetic. So now I have to,,,gulp,,,make chicken soup of him..... :-(
Now my quandry....Assuming he bred with the ladies,,,how long after removing him from them, can I wait before the eggs are no longer fertile from him. I don't want to continue a genetic flaw. Will they always be fertile from him? I really need your opinions on this cuz I'm way outa my league. What do the red spots in the yolk mean?
Also, has anybody ever had a rooster that does NOT crow? The coop is close to us and the neighbors loudly let us know when one of the straight run roosters started crowing so that we would get rid of them but no one has complained yet. I'm thinking the deformity is not only of the beak, but also his crower also.
FYI we lost 'Lil Puff' to the "Great bird of the Sky" the hawk. She was an expert houdini and always snuck outa the coop somehow, we never could figure out how, and the hawk got her one day I was away. That's why we stopped getting the green eggs.
Ok, I'm confused about Misfit...
oh....sorry to hear about Lil Puff and Misfit too.
Sorry you lost Lil Puff.
I don't think the eggs are fertile very long after breeding: a week? Trying to remember...
But you wouldn't be raising chicks this time of year, anyway, right?
Well I guess we had the same luck this week,NowRot! I lost both of my tiny ,Silver Phoenix, to a Hawk day before yesterday! They were so illusive and stayed under brush all the time, I thought they would be safe from the Hawk ,but I was wrong! Mother Nature has a plan and I guess Our birds just fit in on the dinner list ! So Sad!
But I am never going to let any of my tiny birds free range again! If they are small enough for a Hawk to carry off they are no longer be allowed to run free!
Yeah, I'd like to know how long the roo magic lasts as well. anyone?
As long as you remove the eggs each day you can eat them, I am sure. I'm sorry misfit turned out to be a dude! That is so annoying! I've always heard that the red spot means that the egg was fertilized but didn't grow into a chick because it either was removed or shaken up, or whatever. Is that true?
I think I may have a rooster as well, but so far he is really quiet.
I just read a book called HEN AND THE ART OF CHICKEN MAINTANANCE, in which, the guy has a hen that is sort of gender neutral. Is that legit?
There are gender neutral individuals in nearly all species, including human, so I can't imagine why it wouldn't be possible.
Eggs can stay fertile up to a month. Gender neutral, I had 2 ducks that were confused and did it in the pool all the time lol. Now the duck is old and she likes to dance for the rooster even though I have boy ducks now lol. I did say she was confused lol.
I think the question is how long the fertile sperm stays fertile in the hen after being breed
Once a cock bird breeds with a hen, the eggs she lays can be fertile for up to a week.After that ,the chances they are fertile is greatly diminished
We usually "clean " the hens 2 weeks before breeding,then there is not much chance of a previous encounter still being present,so we isolate the hens from any cocks for 2 weeks , collect all the eggs they lay, and get rid of them till we introduce the new cock
Eggs already layed can stay fertile 10 days
after that the fertility drops like a rock
Good to know!
Hi Gang,
Thanks for all of the info. I feel better knowing I can leave Misfit in with all the Ladies. Someday, I'd like to breed them to a nice "Stud" roo to have my own chicks. Didn't want Misfit to mess them up. He perches on the highest point of the coop @ night, as if he's watching over them all. During the day, he sometimes sits in the nest boxes. Maybe he is a bi-sexual or 'neutral'. It's so funny to watch him. He has the most comical personality of them all. No wonder you guys like roos.
That's what so great about this forum. I felt like an idiot, writing that I didn't know Misfit was a roo, but you all responded so graciously to my questions.
Can't have roos where we live, so never planned to hatch any out, especially this time of year.
How do I know when to breed the hens to a stud roo to get spring chicks. In other words, does he just need to mount them once,,,or a bunch of times to make sure they are fetile for chicks and for how many days?
Thanks everyone.
And sorry to hear about your little ones Eufaula. It is heartbreaking!
I've been out of touch a while, NowRot, and was going to ask about MisFit. What a development! I take it the beak is not as much of a problem as feared. Glad to hear it. You haven't stewed him, have you? No idea why that roo has a place in my heart, you know?
The bit of blood in an egg doesn't have anything to do with fertilization -- it's a capillary that broke when the hen was forming the egg. That's what I remember from biology class, anyway.
I think that's what Horseshoe (where is he, by the way ?) told me about the little spots.
He called them 'meat spots' and said they were from a little tissue breaking free in the oviduct. I think he said they were harmless, just a little unappetizing. You can just remove them and use the egg if you want...............unless they are really large, then just toss it.
My hens have had them, but they have gone away after a couple months or so..
The little spots I'm referring to are kind of dark brown. Brig, are you talking about a bloody tinge on the edge of the yolk , or are we talking about the same thing ? lol I never knew what caused the blood streaks at the edge of some of the yolks.
Yeah, I'm talking about the bloody spot or streak on the edge.
yuck!
THat is unappetizing!
I have been having quite a time with my flock. As some of you may know, we have had a critter helping himself to a few meals. One night took out 3 of my hens and badly injured 'Lil Red'. Kept coming back for 4 nights but I had locked up the girls tight. Somehow, though, the beautiful little Polish just "POOF" disappeared during the day. No sign of her. Never got a look @ whatever took any of them, day or night. The baby monitor picks up racket, Barley hears it, goes nuts and scares it off now. My teen son says he's gonna go get me one of those 'night vision' sights for my pistol.
Brig...that is so sweet you are asking about Misfit. He was always so comical and my youngest son dearly loved him. Past tense. I had to send him off into that golden coop in the sky. No one wanted him, cept us, and I can't have constant crowing here....that was tough to do. Plus, I'd never butchered before. I hope that part gets easier.
Backyard,,,,how is your rooster doing? Is he making much racket yet??? What breed is he?
Thanks for the words on the blood spots, meat spots. Now I know what to tell my egg folks. Thus far, I've been fortunate, no blood rings around the yolk. I just have that little dark spot and I must say, it is kinda gross. : - }
Yep, I don't like it either................gross. At first it bothered me more than it does now.
After I learned what it was and finally accepted it as a normal thing with farm fresh eggs, I did get over it pretty much. I just fish it out and go on. Even if a little unappetizing, it's still better to have nice fresh eggs than the old store bought things where the chickens are fed all the hormones and antibiotics etc.
I just kind of try to think of it as a little tiny piece of chicken meat, which is what it really is.
Meat dosen't get any fresher than that.....................the chicken is still alive. lol But I still don't want to eat it. lol.
oh dearie me, we had quite a time with our noble spotty roo!
He was so lovely to all of us, but he had a series of spats with our head hen. He ripped every one of the feathers off of her head. There was so much blood !! Luckily it was just a head wound that bleeds a lot and she was fine. But we descided that it was a good idea to send him home. OUr girls don't peck each other and we didn't want them picking up the habit from seeing him do it, or from bloody spots on our head hen Savannah.
So, we sent him packing. I freecycled him, actually, and he went off to live on a arm as a breeder. So he's a happy boy, I bet.
So we are back to all hens again. I think we are DONE with roosters. I may borrow a silkie roo some day to get some silkie chicks, but otherwise, forget it!
NowRot,I just had the same thing happen with one of my silkies. POOF vanished right in the middle of the afternoon. Nothing but a little blood and feathers. The witnesses aren't talking. :)
We had some roosters that kept pulling all the hen's head feathers out too. Seemed that they were determined to breed, whether the hen wanted to or not. I'm sure the girls didn't know what to think about this jerk that kept grabbing them by the head and doing this.
Seems like the young and inexperienced roosters and hens are the worst for that kind of behaviour. After they get a little older and the hens know what's going on, it seems to get a little less brutal. They learn to just squat and let the rooster cover them and get it over with. A lot less fuss about the whole ordeal.
If you don't want any baby chicks, it's good to get rid of the roo. The hens don't really need the extra stress anyway.
NowRot, sorry to hear about old Misfit, but I certainly understand the necessity. It would be the same here if a hen turned out to be a roo. He had a short life, but you made it a good one.
I'm going to keep mine in a tractor. I don't know if I could handle one being prey.
true, brigidlily, but one of the great joys in life is seeing hens run around the yard :) maybe you could let them roam free when you are in the backyard. it is totally worht it. they are halarious!
I feel really bad about my little partridge colored silkie, but i'm trying to be philosophical about it and see it as the circle of life ( cue the swelling Elton John Lion King music )
Also, you may want to think about what kinds of predators you do have. will they be in the tractor at night? tractors don't seem to be super safe against bigger predators, to me anyway.
The way I'm building the tractor, there will be a part that should be completely safe. I only assume there will be some predators in my 'hood -- but the immediate area is so deforested, there won't be many. It's one of those things where they just took everything down in order to build, you know?
I will probably let them roam free in the evenings, as long as I can protect any baby seedlings from them! I read somewhere that they set their own roost time, and if you let them out about an hour before that time, you don't have any trouble corralling them back in.
And my condolences on your little silkie. I know things happen in life (at 54 I'd BETTER have learned that!) but bits of it are still hard.
Hey, Brig, that's a great idea. I may do that myself, letting them out to roam hour before their bed-time, while I'm cookin dinner. I can see them from my kitchen.
If it's either that or TV, I vote for watching the chickens!!!
Ditto on that. Chickens are lots funnier than TV.