year of the cockerels

[Russ]

i was just looking over my grow pens and noticed the cockerels way out number the pullets. Ahhh it just seemed strange to me that all the varities except my LF Silvers would end up like this. At first i thought it was just my LF BBS....wrong bbs bantam, silver, lavender. Has anyone else noticed this, I started to think maybe the temp of my incubators had something to do with it but the LF Silvers are about 50-50 ratio compared to everyone elses 80-20 ratio. Maybe it was just the year of the cockerels for me? Guess I better fire up the incubator for just 1 more hatch........all prayers welcomed, not for the hatch but my marriage 

[DeWayne Edgin]

Same here Russ but i hatched enough to make up for all of the roosters. However i got all blue wheaten cocks and not a single blue wheaten hen!! Then i lost my blue wheaten rooster after i got rid of all my chicks but one! Now im going to use my splash wheaten to help me out. I don`t want to turn the incubator back on yet but i may have to. I have been married 12 years today and i hope next year i can say 13 years. O well time will tell. 

[Max]

I feel your pain... I'd swear every time I take inventory another cockerel pops up. I just penned 10 of the older cockerels to bring some peace to the barnbard. Looks like about 20 more coming along right behind them.   

[greeneggsandham]

I have quite a few also.  About 70%.  If it wasn't for my one blue wheaten pullet, it would be much, much worse than that.  She gave me only one male, all the others were female.    Good girl.  She likely got tired of being penned with my wheaten and blue wheaten all the time all by her lonesome and decided to fix my problem for me.

 My BBS are most all male.  Might even have to add one or two more to that down the line.  Darn small male peacombs make it hard to tell.   

[DeWayne Edgin]

Funny you brought up small pea combs. I raised some Lavenders to be almost full grown, thinking they were hens! Well they wasn`t! All of my other Ameraucanas are easy to tell after a few months but my Lavenders combs grow in alot slower. I even sold some thinking they were males to a guy that lives 6 miles from me and they grew up to be hens. 

[HarryS]

Depends on the strain.  I make sure all my breeder birds I have no matter what breed have small combs on the males.  Still possible to sex them at young age on most birds. 

[Tailfeathers]

I've got well over 50 Wheaten cockerels growing up that I'm sorting through too.  Not sure what the hatch ratio was because a lot of my imbalance probably has to do with me selling pullets at an early age to those who can't have cockbirds.  I'm finding more people this year wanna wait until the chick can be sexed rather than buy straight-run.

A quick note on the size of combs.  No doubt there's genetics involved but I have read a couple articles that tie the size of the comb to the temperature a bird was raised in.  It seems there is some evidence that the hotter temps create bigger combs.

God Bless,

[Beth C]

articles that tie the size of the comb to the temperature a bird was raised in.  It seems there is some evidence that the hotter temps create bigger combs.

Oh, I hope not!! If that's the case, I'm doomed!

I haven't actually done a head count to determine the ratio, but I sure do see a lot of cockerels running around out here.

[Lee G]

Well I think you guys having a year of the rooster are lucky! If you consider the fact that males contribute as much (if not more) genetic diversity to the entire flock as their female counterparts, well, having an over abundance of testosterone to select from can only be a good thing.   

I had hoped to have lots of cockerels to choose from myself, but now that everyone is grown up enough for me to sex, it has become clear I'm firmly in camp pullet for 2014. Grumble....lol


And nothin' like a nice, tight pea comb to complete the look of a well turned head. Oh lala! 
It will be interesting to see if my import chicks from Maryland develop larger combs than my own home flock, born and bred in colder climes. And if so, if I can get the combs back down in size in a few generations…epigenetics is pretty fascinating stuff. 

[John]

If you consider the fact that males contribute as much (if not more) genetic diversity to the entire flock as their female counterparts,

That is such a great point and too often we just think about one cock over several hens, instead of several rotated over several or more pair and trio matings.

[DeWayne Edgin]

But rotating cocks will mean that you won`t know who the father is. Also if there are chicks that have problems, how will you know what rooster to blame. You will not be able to keep good records on ckicks and then you may breed brother and sister. I would sell the extra cocks that hatched instead of rotating. But thats just me.

[John]

But rotating cocks will mean that you won`t know who the father is. Also if there are chicks that have problems, how will you know what rooster to blame. You will not be able to keep good records on ckicks and then you may breed brother and sister.

DeWayne,

Also in a flock breeding system you don't know who the mother is, so I don't think it matters which is the father when looking for "genetic diversity". 

By keeping at least two breeding pens for each variety you mate the males from pen/coop A over the females from pen B and so on, so siblings aren't mated.

If you want really good records, ideally you would want to go with all pair matings.  Once again it will depend on the time and $ you want or have to put into the hobby. 

[DeWayne Edgin]

I do pair matings. I even take the hen and put her by her self for 4 weeks before i use a different rooster just to be sure. Plus it allows me time to get the first batch of chicks off of heat and into pens so the chicks do not get mixed up.

[Lee G]

On another poultry forum I frequent a trained geneticist recently wrote...

Do keep in mind that males contribute as much to diversity as females. If you restrict your male numbers too much, it doesn't matter how many females you keep. Effective population size (Ne) is a measure of diversity that includes numbers, relatedness, and gender balance, and is used in breeding programs for some species. If you apply it to small chook flocks, you get some interesting things. The offspring population from one male and 1000 females (or 10,000 females) has an Ne of slightly less than 4. The offspring population from two males and 2 females has an Ne of 4. (These calculations assume equal reproductive success among hens, and among roosters. Without equal success, Ne will drop somewhat).

Paraphrased, a flock of 1000 hens and one cock has the potential to produce as much genetic diversity in their chicks as a flock of two hens and two cocks

....cool, eh  it's something I've been contemplating a lot lately, that and how undervalued males are in poultry world in general.

Pair mating IS a lot of extra work, but well worth it in the end imo....especially when you're just getting started working with a new strain. Knowing who is producing what is vital to making any kind of progress forward. And good record keeping is essential, as is having a game plan. I used to think I could remember everything of importance, but soon learned I was sorely mistaken in that. lol Now I like that I can grab any bird in my flock, read their toe punch, and know their exact parentage and/or matriarchal line.

DeWayne, I do the same thing. One thing that made my pair matings a bit easier (and speedier) this season was the use of food colouring. A few drops in the vent of a hen for a few nights in a row, and any eggs laid in the next week or more will be faintly streaked with colour, making id a breeze. I used four colours; red, blue, green and yellow on individuals that were housed together and rotated cocks in. That way I could keep the small groups together (I find the birds are happiest and healthiest when kept in small, mobile flocks) and could still pedigree mate. Worked like a charm...minus my colour stained fingers. 

[Birdcrazy]

Boy is my head spinning  . This is getting too technical for me. I always thought you just put a cock or cockerel in with the hens (less food coloring), gathered eggs, put them in the incubator, cooked them for 21 days and hoped for good healthy chicks. If they come out heavy on cockerels, that's ok, because some of my best show birds have been cockerels. So be it.