Cabinet re-shuffle

A young 2017 Grey Green cock bird coming out of his first moult, will he reproduce??? that is the million dollar question. Nice bird though I like him a lot.

I’ve had a busy couple of hours in the bird room today, some of the birds have been paired for 5 weeks now so there are few bubs hatching. The most important job is to do a cabinet reshuffle, to move birds that are not performing as they should. I have cut back the number of pair I use to make the bird keeping experience much more manageable and therefore pleasurable. So I don’t the patience for any time wasters, hens that don’t get on with it are back in flights quick smart. I have been putting the hen in the cage first with the nest box open and don’t introduce the cock bird until the hen is showing her intent to breed. When you introduce the cock the hen is usually very receptive to his advances. Likewise any cock that is not filling eggs is looked at very carefully to see what happens to him next.
This year I have used a lot of older birds that I would expect not to produce much if anything. They are such good stock birds I am giving them a try. To my surprise a few of them are doing what they should be doing, a great result but early days yet.
With my very best hens I try to pair them to only cock birds that are already filling eggs. I am not prepared to waste these good hens on dud cock birds. Using this techniques gives you a much better chance of getting something out of your better hens.