Growing Stages

Grant Brereton looks forward to getting excited about growing stock...

- Grant Brereton

Much is written on hatching your own chickens. Whether you opt for pure breeds or cross breeds, it is a truly wonderful experience. In fact, the crossbreds can be much more exciting because you never really know what you’re going to get; you might just produce something quite unique to you. In either case, most of us hope that nature will be kind and not give us too many cockerels, and perhaps quite obviously the pure breeds are much easier to move on than crossbred cockerels, despite how beautiful they may look.

When it comes to having tame growers, as you might imagine, theories vary. Some people think that rearing chicks under a heat lamp makes for tamer chicks than those reared under a broody hen. But many factors are at play, including breed temperament, individual strains, the amount of time spent handling by the poultry keeper and so on. 

If you bought in your hatching eggs, then research should have been carried out on the strain and breeder’s history. The reason many top exhibitors don’t like selling hatching eggs is because they fear that ‘the superstar they’ve been dreaming of producing’ might be in one of them. There are different schools of thought on the ethics of this. Some people believe it’s quite a sad and selfish approach, but then others would no doubt question giving away cheaply the kind of stock in which they’ve invested decades. One thing is clear in the current climate, and that’s that hatching eggs have become more readily available from top exhibitors who don’t want to waste them, and who have realised the importance of keeping these precious strains going.