Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We've got about a doz Rhodies some bantam, some reg size, and one Isa Brown, and we have borrowed a neighbours meat bird to get a few eggs from her with our Rhodie rooster over her to get some bigger size in the flock- specially for meat production.
Our birds fodder preference is: meat scraps (be it beef trimmings, lamb, fish or chicken) Sunflower seeds, leftovers, Cooked grains from the brewery,Dog bikkies, sorghum, wheat, styrofoam boxes, tomatoes (our chooks have discovered how to fly up ontop of the growbeds to get the cherry tomatoes ) rocks, sand and lastly corn, altho we have a "Greenpick bed" with mixed grains sprouted in it and they will eat the growing corn quite happily that way.

They mostly free range around the yard and keep down the lizard numbers too .

These are two of my chooks, almost as big as that rooster.

We have the (mis)fortune of living close to the city. Council bylaws specify that a max of 6 chooks and 0 roosters may be kept on a property.
This is due to the roosters' crowing. Is there a good egg/meat breed that doesn't crow (very loud) such that I might get away with keeping a rooster?
I have recently begun abventure into keeping quail. But something larger too might be nice.

I like to sleep in (well liked to before my wife tricked me in to procreating but that's another story), so I looked for a low crow rooster and as far as I have been told they don't exist. You can get lucky with individual birds who have a husky sore throat type of crow which is much quieter, but this is just pot luck as this trait is not isolated to any breed (bring on the genetic engineering).

Vets can de-crow a rooster for you which I think involves removing the vocal cords, probably not the nicest thing to do, after all what is the point of being a boy if you can't brag about it.

I've heard decrowing roosters will hurt their self esteem and cause them to be less virulent.
Ok. I'll stick with quail, and post my next questions in that thread . Thanks.

we got a few Hyline hybrids for egg production
apparently they will produce 600 eggs and then become stock

Does that mean they won't spur you?? Is that a bad thing??

Virulent, not violent. Less effective as a stud. Less potent. Almost impotent.

You could always get fertile eggs from a breeder, (maybe trade some trout for them) and put them under a clucky hen or into an incubator......You could make a small incubator yourself, they are piss easy to do. I remember we used an electric frypan when I was in high school. set the temperature, have a cup of water in there for humidity and wait 21 days.

On the subjet of roosters, we recently "aquired" a bantom buff wyndotte and a pullet to go with him....not sure I want to keep these two as we want to establish our flock of silver laced. They were aquired through my nephew who thought he was doing my parents a favour and baught them at the Royal show for $90, parents have already had dealings with the council so I wound up with them.

As for food, I've switched mine to a "organic mix" which the local feed store makes up. has a combination of different seeds as well as shell grit and molasses, this and free ranging when we are home.

Himzo.

Well my hens are almost 26 weeks old and no eggs...Whats up. I was told the length of day doesn't effect egg production just goes down when it's really hot or really cold. Any Ideas?? Does over feeding hurt egg production???

My Australorps have just started laying an egg a day and they took around 35 weeks, maybe because they take longer to be fully grown. Just wait I'm sure it will happen eventually, unless they are post-op trannie roosters

Some birds take longer to get started than others.

As to the birds that could do meat and eggs and the males don't crow?!?!?! Well not Chooks but you might look into Muscovy Ducks (they don't quack either) Muscovy ducks (according to my reading and research, I have not gotten any and have no actual personal experience with them) are not like regular ducks. The meat is apparently quite lean and they are pretty big heavy birds and they lay eggs and the females will even incubate eggs from other types of birds too. They don't quack, the males will hiss like geese when threatened and the females coo apparently. I hear these birds are very good foragers and are good paired with rabbits as the birds will forage for bugs under the rabbit hutches. They also don't need so much water as regular ducks do and even fair quite well in relatively arid areas.

Oh as to the fodder for my birds, they love the scraps from when we clean fish.

I initally bought 12 poulets then rat/possum killed 2. I replaced them with 3 more poulets... not 2 roosters and a hen. They are about 6 weeks younger than the others. They just started to do minor little scuffels. No crowing yet though. A couple fat hens still rule the roost for now.
I built them a new house with nest boxes out of used cedar fence boards. It has a hinged tin roof to access the eggs. I just set up a modifed deer feeder to feed them scratch for when I leave next week to go deer hunting. Pen already has auto water system.

I have owned them in the past and the males are definatly NOT pretty, his name was Fugly for obvious reasons. Look like ducks related to geese, very easy to breed and keep.

Why do you want a rooster KP? As someone else mentioned just buy some fertile eggs or better still, sexed chicks each year.

6 is quite a lot of chooks. We have two Isa Browns and from the two we averaged 10 eggs a week over winter and now get around 12-14 a week which is plenty for my family. They live in my fancy heavy as hell chook tractor that I am yet to put wheels on and finish We plan on adding one or two sexed chicks per year to keep egg production up.