Utility Plymouth Rocks

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of increasing my flock next year using a dozen hatching eggs. I have two hens that went broody in the spring, so why not use them! But I know very little about breeding, and I have a couple of concerns.

Firstly, I like Plymouth Rocks, can I keep cockerels (and later fully grown males) of this breed together in the same run, and if so how many square feet per bird would they need?

Secondly, my current set up is:- A flock of 4 housed in my back garden, which is a reasonable size. I have two runs with houses attached, one is 9'x3' and the other is 11'x5' (see pic). I will acquire a broody coop for the broody. Do I need anymore houseing?

Thirdly, for the future, I'm not sure whether this is common practice but I'm not comfortable with breeding sister and brother together (from those hatching eggs), presumably I would buy a male bird from an unrelated flock?

Lastly, I'm confused about this double mating of breeds. Is this only for show birds? Does this have any relevance with relation to utility poultry?

Regards.

P.S. Also could anyone recommend any good books on breeding utility poultry?

 

[Davidd]

Hi, to answer your questions- firstly some cockerels can be kept together with no problems- others will be ok for a time then will fight and even kill one another- it's all down to individual birds and sometimes breeds- i keep two large fowl silkies together and have no problems at all- they have 13 hens between them so plenty to go around :shock: You can try it and if it doesn't work out them separate them or get rid of one. You could always keep one in one house/run and let the other free range and swap over every day or two.
Secondly- it all depends on how many birds/breeding pens you are wanting to keep. The more housing and the bigger the better.You will need somewhere to keep the growers in once they out grow the broody hen and coop.
thirdly- brother sister is ok but father/daughter and son/mother is better- if you keep adding unrelated blood lines you will only end up inheriting other peoples faults- as long as your birds are a good standard and come from two different lines to start with then matings as above are no problem. It's just human nature to think it's strange to mate father to daughter but most top breeders do this with no worries.

Lastly- some breeds have cock breeder males and pullet breeder males-these are normally breeds which have complicated plumage patterns in which the cocks are naturally a different pattern to the hens. pencilled hamburghs, pencilled and laced wyandottes being examples. If you are not going to show your birds then you don't need to double mate. In barred rocks people do "double mate" this is because of the desire to produce even coloured cocks and pullets ( the cocks have either two or one barring gene) therefore those with two will be generally much lighter in overall colour than those with one)

Regards, David