"The most important thing no one should forget is that this is a hobby and a hobby should be for fun!
The pleasure in the hobby and the friends are more important than the quality of your birds."
Heine Bijker - 4 time World Cup Roller Fly Champion
FOSTERING
BREEDING/FOSTERING
The majority of birds that I breed are raised using the foster system. What that means is that the actual breeders don't raise their own young. Their eggs are placed under "foster" or "feeder" parents to be hatched and raised by the foster parents.
There are several reasons I use fosters. One of the main reasons is that with Birmingham Rollers, you want the young as close together in age as possible to make it easier to wean and train. By using fosters you are able to get each round of babies that are only about 10 days apart in age from a single pair. What that means is that if you have 6 pairs of breeders, you can get 2 rounds, 24 babies (one kit), that are within 10 days of each other. Without using fosters, the closest in age that you would be able to get is about 32 days apart.
By using fosters, from a single pair of breeders, you are able to get 8 babies a total of 30 days apart and only 4 babies without fostering.
Another reason that I like fostering is that I feel it is less stressful on the breeder hen. I think that if they were breeding naturally, having the hen feeding 14 day old babies while she is getting ready to lay the second set of eggs is more stressful on her than just producing eggs. I ensure that the birds have red grit with added oyster shells in front of them 24/7. I also give them a vitamin/mineral supplement in the water once or twice a week. I have been using this system for about 8 years and have seen no ill effects on my breeder hens.
The last reason that I prefer fostering is that I can shorten the breeding season by "pumping" out all the babies at once. Then I spend the rest of the year just flying out these youngsters and watching them mature.
The one major drawback with using fosters is maintaining the fosters the rest of the year that they are not raising babies. Some fanciers use other breeds to foster their young like show birds or racers. I only raise rollers so that is what I use. I have used birds out of my old bird team as fosters just so that I wouldn't have to feed the fosters while they were just sitting in a pen. After the breeding season I would just put those fosters back in the kit and re-fly them. I also like using older hens that have stopped laying as fosters because it is a lot easier to get them in "cycle" with the breeders. Whatever you do, when you find a bird or pair of fosters that are willing to sit on eggs for 25 days, will feed any baby put in their nest or that comes to them on the floor of the loft, not cause any problems like fighting in the foster loft, cherish them. To me a great pair of fosters is more valuable than a good pair of breeders.
One fault that I will not tolerate with the fosters is a bird that scalps a youngster. The foster loft has a 1" x 12" board raised up about 3"-4"off the floor which is against the wall for the squeakers to hide under if they feel threatened. If I see a bird attempting to scalp a squeaker, he/she is removed permanently from the program. The loft has to be as calm and relaxed as possible.
GETTING STARTED
The first thing I do is put the foster cocks in the foster pen and let them claim their nestboxes. It usually takes about a week for everyone to settle into their own box. A couple days before I plan on introducing the hens into the foster loft I will put my breeders together in the individual pens. The reason I do this is that I do not want the fosters to lay their eggs first. If they lay at the same time or after the breeders than it is no problem.
Below is the general timing of the eggs that has worked for me.
Foster pair laying no more than 2 days before the breeders. This means that the foster pair lays their second egg the same day the breeders lay their first egg. I have had fosters abandon their nest on the 21st day with eggs that were already hatching, not a good sight.
Foster pair laying up to 7 days after the breeders. I have had good results as long as the fosters sit the eggs for at least 10 days. I have had a few that have sat eggs for only 7 days with no problem.
(I keep Kaytee Exact hand feeding formula in my freezer just in case I get a pair that doesn't have "milk" to feed the young. I have not had to use it for that purpose yet, but I have used it to feed the smaller babies in the nest and it helps them to "catch up" to the bigger sibling.)
SWITCHING EGGS
This might seem like a "no brainer" but it is a very important to do this correctly to have a sucessful fostering program. The most important part of successfully switching eggs is keeping accurate records. This means to write down when each foster and breeder pair lays their eggs. What I do is keep a little card on the foster pairs nestbox and write the date that the first egg is laid. For my breeders I also keep a card with the band numbers of the pair and date laid on it. This card stays with the eggs and when I switch the eggs to the fosters it gets attached to the fosters nestbox.
When you have a foster pair and a breeder pair with eggs laid within the correct time frame it's time to get ready to do the swap.
First on the list is to toss the foster eggs and replace with wooden "fake" eggs. Even if you are going to swap in the breeder eggs within a few minutes I always toss the foster eggs first. This will avoid any confusion when you have the breeders eggs in hand. I can speak from experience that it's not a very good feeling to have the breeders eggs in one hand and the fosters eggs in the other and not remember which one is which. TOSS THE FOSTER EGGS FIRST.
The reason for placing the wooden eggs under the fosters is that I have had a pair or two that will abandon the nest after only 5 minutes of not having eggs in the nest. So I place the fake eggs under the fosters when I remove their eggs and retrieve the breeders eggs.
Secondly, get the breeders eggs and the card with the pairs information and place the eggs under the fosters and remove the wooden eggs. Place the card on the nestbox. When placing the eggs under the foster, if you haven't done it before, do it one egg at a time. If you have both eggs in one hand and the eggs are touching each other and the foster bird "wing slaps" your hand, it could cause the eggs to break. So to be on the safe side place the eggs in the nest one at a time.
Now that you have the eggs swapped and the info with the correct eggs, all that is left is to wait for the babies to hatch.
Just one more note regarding swapping of the eggs. Only do one pair at a time!
Don't think that just because you can multi-task, (drive while texting or chew gum while walking) that you can swap 5 sets of eggs at a time. All it takes is one little mistake to mess up your breeding season, or at least mess up your records for that round of eggs.
AFTER THE SWAP
Now that you have swapped out the breeders eggs to the foster pair you have a couple decisions to make. First, if you have a foster pair that you think will be laying in about 2 weeks you can let the breeders go naturally and they should lay within 10 days or so.
If you don't have fosters that will be ready within 2 weeks, but maybe they'll lay in 3 weeks. You can place the wooden eggs under the breeders for about a week or 10 days until you think the timing is right and then pull the fake eggs. This is one way of getting the fosters and breeders in time with each other.
Now if you have gotten a couple rounds off of the breeders and want to give the hen a rest without breaking the pair up you can let the pair sit on the fake eggs. This will give the hen approximately 3 weeks of rest without being chased around by the cock.
Be sure to have grit with oyster shells available to the breeders and also give them a vitamin/mineral supplement about every week. This will ensure that the hen doesn't deplete her calcium reserves and helps to keep the breeders healthy.