This rather handsome young cockerel is the son of our black green-egg laying chicken (herself a mixed breed from a breeder who specislised in producing blue/green egg layers) and either our Indian Game cockerel or our Buff Orpington one. We cannot see either of the males in him but he has his mum’s black whiskers which in his case merge into a rather fine beard. He is very good looking and whilst he is related to his mum (obviously) we have decided to keep him as he will, we hope, help to produce some interesting chicks next year. He is therefore being saved from going to the pot.
This year we haven’t had many males at all across our chickens, ducks and turkeys... it does mean we will have some females ending up in the freezer, especially the ducks as the ratio there must be a good 3 to 1.
No idea why and usually more females is good news as they tend to sell better. Sadly Facebook’ s ‘no selling animals privately’ rules have somewhat reduced a lot of livestock sales this summer/autumn and so we, like others, have more stock than normal for the time of year.