Edith’s answer to my
question about what she wish she’d known about chickens when she
first got started involved breeding:
full blood Buff. He has Fathered all of our chicks since he was
able to. In the picture he is doing his dance trying to win over
the Hens.
“To answer the question…….I wish I had known about inbreeding.
The Hen in the other picture set twice this Spring…..the only
problem is that we hatched out 4 chicks from both settings. Dud
eggs. We tried incubating also….all duds. Very sad to learn the
hard way.”
Although Edith’s
photos are beautiful, I’m not 100% sure I agree with her that
inbreeding is the problem. It would be worth checking
several of the hens’ eggs to see if they were fertilized (maybe PeepPeep is
shooting mostly blanks?) and to autopsy the eggs that didn’t hatch
to see how far the chicks developed before they died. I
provide more information on solving hatch-related problems in Permaculture
Chicken: Incubation Handbook. Good luck on a better hatch next time!
Thank you Anna. I’ll look into it. You may be right….
This is what I meant about inbreeding. He may be getting past his time, along with maybe some genetic difficulties. He’s 3 1/2 and he’s the only Rooster we’ve used. We just acquired a new Rooster along with Peep Peep. So we’ll see.
Edith