Unsecure chicken perches

[kate and liv]

At what age do male chickens become fertile

[Redwing]

Potentially from about 16-18 weeks but more reliably at about 6 months

[kate and liv]

Thank you for your answer. Do you have any advice to give on the pros and cons of either introducing 2 bantam chicks/pullets to my remaining girl chicken [who I think is a game variety -she looks like a pheasant] Or to keep 1 of the boys and let her raise a brood of her own.

[Redwing]

I guess it depends on your long term goals

 

You could let the cockerel fertilise some eggs before rehoming/culling him but this is unlikely to co-incide with a broody period for the female, especially as you need her to be laying the eggs! so you'd probably end up incubator hatching then raising them separately till they were 18 weeks old then they could go in with the female after careful introduction. The timing of this will mean more work too as chicks will need to stay warmer for longer as the weather turns colder

 

Its probably easier to get some point of lay pullets now and introduce them - anything younger wont hold its own with the female so would need to stay separate for quite some time

 

You could do both and have new pullets and breed the cockerel to all of the females next year but it depends on whether you actually want chicks and also whether you can get away with having a cockerel where you live