Failed again!!

[Trev62]

Well we seem to have done it again! The first young chicks we brought last year for our supply of eggs resulted in us having one hen and four cockerels, our neighbours luckily gave us another four hens and a cockerel as a gift, so after dispatching the surplus cockerels we had a full freezer as we had also raised several broiler chickens for meat.

Earlier this year we brought another six young chicks to increase our supply of eggs just in case we were unsuccessful in hatching our own and what have we got??? Another five definite cockerels and a can't quite decide yet!

Working on the 50/50 ratio of cockerels to hens that everyone quotes when talking about getting young chicks, we are well out! So with the broilers we also have at present it looks like another full freezer again this year and a return trip to the bird market to try our luck again!

I am as lucky picking baby hen chicks as I was at picking lottery numbers!!

[wendy]

Don't they say that 60% of a clutch are males ?

[bikesandbirdsbob]

Hi Trev , this is the reason I have stopped my self from hatching chicks of my boys as have enough noisy boys already .
Shame as I am sure Des and the boys would produce pretty / handsome off spring.
Bob

[Gwenoakes]

I thought the ratio was higher than 50/50. We let some chickens we had on an allotment have young and out of 18 eggs, 12 of them were male.
I would have kept them all, but they fought like crazy even though we got a lot more hens and in the end they had to be dispatched as no one wanted them.

[Trev62]

Well we have beaten to 80/20 split of cockerels to hens from our first ones, 100% yes..... 100% all the birds in our latest are cockerels this time so it is back to the bird market next Sunday for our next batch of broilers and yet another attempt at selecting some baby hen chicks.

Bob I agree wholeheartedly with you about Des!