I keep reds and leghorns and plan to cross breed to make the red sexlink. my hens are loosing there back feathers because I leave my rooster in with the hens all the time. How do you keep breeding roosters and how long should you leave them in with the hens?

-- Brian Iron Station NC (okonskis@juno.com), January 27, 2002

Answers

If you aren't using eggs for nest/incubator,why should you keep rooster in w/hens? if you are,cage them up for day,out at night.

-- Dusty Ross (ourpinkroses@yahoo.com), January 27, 2002.

We have always left our roosters with the hens. Each year we despur them,it helps with the feather loss on the hens.

-- bergy (bergy@psbnewton.com), January 27, 2002.

I've never done the despurring, and have only had this problem when there were too many roosters for the number of hens. Do you only have the one rooster?

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), January 27, 2002.

I have more than the recommended number of roosters. They free range during the day with the hens and they all roost together in the pens at night. The boys don't fight. I have never had any bald birds. I haven't had to trim spurs. All the birds are heavily feathered. I doubt if the results would be the same if they were always cooped up.

I have the birds to keep the insect population down, so the birds are with me for their entire lives.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), January 27, 2002.