Advise on pairing up ?

could you advise on the best way to pair up, mine are all fighting and wont have none of it.........



any help is apretiated.

Hi david,

When i paired mine up i placed a divider in the nest box and kept them locked in together for a few days, just no contact.
These were all yearlings but after a few days i let each pair out on their own and waited until they were all returning to their own nestboxes before letting them all out together.
All settled well and laid between 9 & 12 days.
A little time consuming but it worked for me

Tony.

thats good advice tony thanks for shearing

David I am a believer in free mating especially the racers, but letting them all in together does cause kaos....and sometimes you always find some hens get fed up and a few are without mates, what I do then is close a birds box up so nothing eles goes in it, put him in a section on his own if you have one otherwise a basket will do. Put a fresh hen in with him in the section and leave them for 1 full day and half the next day and they will have paired, then put the hen in one side of his box and let him back in the section he was in, then do the same with the next cock always works for me.

Stock birds are always different I always put a hen in one side of the box to pair when they are showing to one another after the first day I let them all out for food and a drink, sometimes out of 12 boxes 2 or 3 will click after 1 day, sometimes none at all.

If after food and water they are all over the place I put them back in the boxes and they stay there another day, I repeat this for 2/3 days, then reverse it and lock the cocks in the boxes one side and leave the hens loose. Then you will see some hens going back to the boxes they were in and the cock will be calling. then 1 at a time a cock that the hen is coming to will be let out once she finds the box and they seem happy they stay out, eventually they will all be sorted mine all paired this way this year within 4 days.

if you dont want any off your race birds then let the cocks for the race section all find a box shut any spare boxs off once there setteld to that box take the
cocks to the hens section and let the hens in the race section for a week they to will all pic a box do this in winter over a couple of weeks you can then reduce the days ie cocks in race section 2 days then hens
then all you do when you want to pair is open the door and let um all mix together 99% of the time they dont fight and all the cocks and hens go to there selected box and pair up

p.s thats love pairing not forced many say they race better