Incubating eggs

[chicken lodge]

Hi everyone,
Last year I managed to hatch 5 eggs in the incubator after one of the chickens sat on the eggs for 10 days and then got off, we thought we had lost them, but 5 chicks were born much to my delight.
They are now quite old, and live with the other chickens and cockerel, and here comes one of my problems, out of the 5 chicks 4 of them are male, at the moment they are not fighting, and all seem to be roosting together, but I know its only a matter of time, they are all full free range in a huge garden with lots of hiding places, and seem quite happy, they are a complete mixed breed as we have got them from mixed sources.
So if anyone could give me some advice I would appreciate it, or if anyone would like a cockerel please let me know.
Also, I am looking to hatch some more in the spring and was hoping for some more advice, is there anyway you can change the temp in the incubator so that out of the chicks being hatched there is a higher chance of more females rather than males, or is that impossible.
Looking forward to any help. Many thanks

 

[watson]

Unfortunately you can't do things like alter the temp to get more hens otherwise egg companies would be doing this. If you have enough space there shouldn't be a problem with them falling out although it may get a bit noisey when they all start crowing. We have 3 cocks in ours but we do have 24 hens for them to share.

How many hens do you have all together? As the cocks might over use them (cantel think of correct term at this time of night :lol

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Poultry Keeper Forum

 

[T0NY]

We used to have 4 Rhody cocks together, you tend to find they soon sort out the pecking order. You can only determain the sex of reptiles with temperature control in an incubator. Unfortunately all though there are many miths (a gold ring held with a piece of string over the egg being one) no one has been able to determain the sex of a chick before it is hatched. The closest you can get is a sex linked chick which are either brown or yellow for male & female.

 

[Chuck]

Sex linked chicks are useful as you can sex them at hatch though they are not all brown and yellow, there are other sex linked crosses.

The auto sexing breeds are useful too as they can be sexed at hatch. No chance with mongrels though.

Your males might be OK together, you can never tell. They appear to be settled then one will challenge another and they kick off. Space and a good number of hens will help as said.

 

[chicken lodge]

Thank you everyone for your help, you have all been geat with your advice. looking forward to more chicks in the spring