JimW wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2017 1:51 am
I am sticking with working with and attempting to breed, in small numbers, 7 breeds of chickens this year... BC Marans, Cream Legbars, Bielefelders, Cuckoo Malines, Mottled Houdans, Ayam cemani and Svart hona. I also have my Beltsville Small White Turkeys for breeding.
Not getting any new chicken breeds to raise for future breeding, I repeat NO new chicken breeds!!!
I have ordered a few chickens from Performance Poultry to raise a few extra hens for egging eggs (Exchequer and Rose Comb Brown Leghorns and Whiting True Blues).
I also ordered a few more Mottled Houdan chicks
My new projects for 2017..... there always has to be new projects....lol
1. get some jumbo Quail again to raise and breed. I will also hopefully replace a few of my fancy quail, snowflakes and Californias that were killed by the weasel.
2. Black East Indie Ducks - I ordered 4 ducks for fun.
3. Turkeys - I currently have my BSW. I will hopefully get some Chocolate turkey hatching eggs from Silkie Sue, plus I have ordered some hatching eggs from BC for May shipping, so hopefully this year I can raise up a few chocolate turkeys so I can breed some in 2018. Along with the chocolates I want to raise a few Spanish Black turkeys to try and produce sex-linked turkeys in 2018. I also ordered a few Sweetgrass turkey hatching eggs along with the chocolate eggs.
4. Meat Chickens - I plan to raise some meat birds this year, I ordered a few last year, but changed my mind and sold them the next day. I will raise any extra Bielefelder and Malines roosters I produce for meat, but will order a few as well. I am hoping to try the Mistral Gris chickens from True North Farms.
JimW
Okay as I sit here watching tv, thought I would revisit my post from 6 months ago....
The plan to stick with 7 chicken breeds not too bad, I recently sold my Mottled Houdans so dropped that breed for now, but have a few Araucanas now, so still 7 chicken breeds, just more of them...BC Marans, Cream Legbars, Bielefelders, Cuckoo Malines, Araucana, Ayam cemani and Svart hona.
I had terrible luck with my Bielefelders and Malines only have a few birds of each in the works of getting more.
BC Marans my group did well this year expanding for next year, adding more birds from 2 different breeders with nice dark eggs.
Cream Legbars doing great, great lays of nice blue eggs. I am raising for birds that are suppose to be Jill Reese line so next year I will have 2 breeding groups of legbars.
Svart hona, I only have a quad and they did not lay very well this year. My friend has some as well and his laid awesome, so I am getting 10 birds from him to add to my group.
Svart hona are doing well, I just picked up some new birds from a different US bloodline and hope to add birds from European and Indo bloodlines next year.
Araucana I just have a few young birds, focusing on tuftless and rumpless birds.
My Beltsville Small White Turkeys laid like crazy, I have sold all my original birds, except for 2 hens and I am restarting my flock with 20 new birds of both bloodlines I picked up recently from Cirrus Hill.
Exchequer and Rose Comb Brown Leghorns, Whiting True Blues and Mottled Houdans I ordered from Performance Poultry I sold all of them.
My new projects for 2017 were to be...
1. get some jumbo Quail again - I have 18 jumbo quail I hatched from eggs from Perry in Alberta, hopefully they start laying soon.
2. Black East Indie Ducks - I have 4 ducklings and a 1 year old pair I bought.
3. Turkeys - I have 1 Chocolate turkey from eggs from BC and getting some poults from Silkie Sue soon, can't wait. Also picking up a couple more Spanish black turkeys from Quebec soon.
4. Meat Chickens - I ended up just getting 25 White Rocks from Mill Pond Hatchery, they are doing great.
My breeding for the year is pretty much done, I hatched about 200 chicks and sold about 500 hatching eggs. I may hatch a few more Cream Legbar but that is about it, until quail start laying. Now just growing up next years breeders and making plans for 2018.
JimW