Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

Pyxis said:

Were you never tempted to have the odd brood of chicks?

Although, lovely and sweet as chicks are, you then have the later problem of what to do with any males. ☹️

No never tempted because like you say Pyxis it's "the males".  Apparently when chicks hatch it is normally a 60/40 split in favour of Cockerels and hen owners would normally only have one Cockerel with their girls so it leaves the question of what to do with the rest, sadly.  Saying that it has been known for larger places like farms to have more than one Cockerel so I am guessing it would work out ok if space allows. It is never easy to rehome Cockerels I'm sad to say, although our Bertie was a rescue boy, I guess he was one of the lucky ones.  Most poultry rescue homes will have Cockerels available for rehoming and they are normally inundated with them.  The BHWT has a "Lonely Hearts" section on-line for rehoming Cockerels, it's true, they really do. I often have a look because there certainly are some good looking chaps on there that's for sure, bless 'em 😀

Edwink

Pyxis

A 60/40 split in favour of males? That's interesting. I wonder if that holds true for other birds? If so, it makes sense as to why male birds have to put all the hard work into attracting a mate, both plumage-wise and behaviour-wise.

Just thinking though.........left to run feral, would several hens still be in a harem to one male, or would it even out more to a one-to-one each year like most other birds? 
Maybe they've been domesticated for so long that we'll never know.

orangecrush

Pyxis said:

A 60/40 split in favour of males? That's interesting. I wonder if that holds true for other birds? If so, it makes sense as to why male birds have to put all the hard work into attracting a mate, both plumage-wise and behaviour-wise.

Just thinking though.........left to run feral, would several hens still be in a harem to one male, or would it even out more to a one-to-one each year like most other birds? 
Maybe they've been domesticated for so long that we'll never know.

There is a split in most birth ratios!  Even humans!  There are 105 boys born for every 100 girls, but on the other side, life expectancy for men is lower than women, so it balances out.  I'm making a huge assumption that life expectancy for male chickens would be much shorter than female, to justify a split that large.  Pure speculation but maybe its because they engage in more fighting, territory disputes, protecting their harem etc?  Interesting stuff

orangecrush

Hi everyone!

I've missed so much - I have been working from home with my little one (and of course feathery ones in the garden) so I have been checking in now and then but have had no time to post.  Hope you're all ok!  My toddler is back at nursery now so I hope to have a bit more time to read back and see everyone's news!

Pyxis

orangecrush said:

Pyxis said:

A 60/40 split in favour of males? That's interesting. I wonder if that holds true for other birds? If so, it makes sense as to why male birds have to put all the hard work into attracting a mate, both plumage-wise and behaviour-wise.

Just thinking though.........left to run feral, would several hens still be in a harem to one male, or would it even out more to a one-to-one each year like most other birds? 
Maybe they've been domesticated for so long that we'll never know.

There is a split in most birth ratios!  Even humans!  There are 105 boys born for every 100 girls, but on the other side, life expectancy for men is lower than women, so it balances out.  I'm making a huge assumption that life expectancy for male chickens would be much shorter than female, to justify a split that large.  Pure speculation but maybe its because they engage in more fighting, territory disputes, protecting their harem etc?  Interesting stuff

Yes. It just seemed a rather large skew in favour of males. As you say, they probably fight a lot! Boys will be boys! 😂😂

hannaford

Hi all. I'm a new member to this group, mum to 4 daft girls who keep me entertained!
I've enjoyed reading you posts thank you! :-D
I was just wondering whether anyone has seen a discount code for Omlet for anything better than 5% please? I need to buy a few bits and it's all SOOOOOOOOO expensive lol. 

edwink

hannaford said:

Hi all. I'm a new member to this group, mum to 4 daft girls who keep me entertained!
I've enjoyed reading you posts thank you! :-D
I was just wondering whether anyone has seen a discount code for Omlet for anything better than 5% please? I need to buy a few bits and it's all SOOOOOOOOO expensive lol. 

Hi hannaford

Welcome to our hen and duck friendly thread, always nice to have new posters on here.

Personally I haven't seen any discount codes for Omlet I'm afraid.  Can I ask what you are looking to buy? If you let us know we would be able to go off on a hunt for you to find the best prices but you may have already done that I guess.

Edwink x

edwink

orangecrush said:

Hi everyone!

I've missed so much - I have been working from home with my little one (and of course feathery ones in the garden) so I have been checking in now and then but have had no time to post.  Hope you're all ok!  My toddler is back at nursery now so I hope to have a bit more time to read back and see everyone's news!

Hi Orangecrush

Nice to see you on here again 😁  I know myself life gets in the way sometimes and before we know it the whole week has gone.  To be honest, I can't believe it is Friday already this week, where do the days go?. I'm not surprised you've been busy with working from home especially having your little one home too and the hens.

How are your girls these days?  All happy and healthy I hope.  Mine are acting like complete and utter menaces today, bless 'em, nothing new there then 🤣🤣🤣  But, in their defence the weather has been menacing in itself as we have had torrential rain on and off here, not grumbling as it has been so dry lately, the girls were not best pleased with it though 😆

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Morning all 😁

Welcome hannaford! I've not seen any discount codes either I'm afraid. Omlet are SO expensive 😮 I'm sure their stuff is good quality but I confess I've never bought any of it. As edwink says, we might be able to help with alternatives if you can't find a code?

And welcome back orangecrush! Yes the days are whizzing by aren't they?

All ok here. Bessie seems to be selling slightly again... but we've spoken to the vet and upped her diuretics so we'll see how she gets on over the weekend. Still running around and eating which is always good. 

Ooh, and we've had an email about new hens! They're going to ring over the weekend and book us in to collect them next week. Once we've got an actual booking I'll cancel the rescue ladies so someone on the waiting list can have them. Hoping they'll let us collect next weekend so we have plenty of time to make our alterations - Mr Chery has put one sheet of roofing up but it's been raining since then so need a couple of dry days to get the rest of that on and sort the run for multiple occupancy.

Has anyone introduced a set of young (16/17 weeks) hens to a flock of rescues? We've done rescues with rescues but obviously they were all the same size/level of cantankerousness 😂 My friend had some 12 week old hens a few weeks ago and hers are still separate to her existing flock. 

We only have one run so we'll split that, then do what we did before and get everyone in the same hen house overnight and get up early to separate again in the morning. It'll be interesting to see how our old ladies will react... not very well at first, I'd imagine!

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:

Has anyone introduced a set of young (16/17 weeks) hens to a flock of rescues? We've done rescues with rescues but obviously they were all the same size/level of cantankerousness 😂 My friend had some 12 week old hens a few weeks ago and hers are still separate to her existing flock. 

We only have one run so we'll split that, then do what we did before and get everyone in the same hen house overnight and get up early to separate again in the morning. It'll be interesting to see how our old ladies will react... not very well at first, I'd imagine!

Hi Cheery

How exciting for you both.  We did exactly as you are doing and introduced 3mth old hens to our old rescue girls. The way we did it initially was to keep the new hens in our duck run and let the old rescue girls see them through the chicken wire on 3 sides. Of course, the rescue girls were extremely interested whereas the new girls just walked about chomping on pellets and green stuff.  I'm going back a bit now but I think we kept them like that for a week or so and then one day opened up the duck run and let them all meet up. Of course, the rescue girls wanted to be the top hens and they were for a number of months until the new hens got bigger and then the pecking order was shuffled about and they decided between them who was the new top hen.  One of the new hens was a Light Sussex and got pretty large so in the end she became the boss. The old rescue girls always went around together and basically kept out of the new hen's way.  There was a bit of squabbling initially whilst I was out there refereeing but that soon settled as the rescue hens were too old to bother the new younger girls because they knew the new hens would always win in any dispute between them.  At feeding time and treat time all the hens would be standing together no problem, just during the day, the old hens foraged in different areas to the new hens.  They all learnt to live together in the end 😁

Do let us know what day you will be bringing them home 😁

Edwink x

ETA:- We introduced 8 young hens to 8 rescue girls.