Good Morning! in 2018

[windwalkingwolf]

I NEED more poults in my life. BSW poult count for this year was two early in the year, inexplicably died. Then the one that my turkey hen sat on, that you warned me seemed to come from an "off batch", seemed absolutely fine and healthy until about 3 weeks old, then just suddenly dead. We will not discuss the eggs that were developing but got smashed by a tom. So, a grand total of 3 BSW poults hatched, and zero alive. "Two" has shown zero interest in laying eggs since March, and the other two hens are following chicken chicks around, mooning and moulting since early June. I separated them all out for a bit, but that seemed to make the broodiness worse, not better LOL so with them now claiming all the chicken chicks, I'm thinking I might not get more eggs until October!
The Bronze I hatched are doing fabulously, but they're not little babies anymore Vian almost took one home with him the other day; it hopped in his car when he left the door open a little too long. They are three months old, and there's only two out of eleven total atm that I suspect of being a hen. Anyway, should you happen to get a surplus of BSW eggs anytime in the near future, I will happily pay you for a dozen or two. The bronze are not staying! I really like the compactness and broodiness of the BSW.

[Killerbunny]

He said the bronze was seriously cute! I have some eggs but not sure on fertility.

[WLLady]

Hi everyone
what a weekend.....
funeral on saturday morning that kind of spilled over into the afternoon nuked a whole day pretty much of the weekend for us-totally unexpected....anyways it is what it is. So saturday evening finally managed to get out to do some of the work needing to be done around the farm. Got some weeding in the garden done and found several massive watermelons-the rains lately have done wonders for the garden. i hope they ripen soon and don't get much bigger! got the grass cut, got the pea gravel into the greenhouse and tiles down, and the shelving in. did the required house cleaning early sunday morning and then started tearing out a part of the patio that needs to be rebricked after the scissor lift truck drove over it for the construction and left ruts everywhere....found mice nesting in the shavings (that just ticks me off) and under the waterers! these awful things are actually chewing up the plastic of the dog bowls to nest underneath! and it was so hot this weekend....working in the garden for an hour or so and then heading in to cool off and get water, then back at it. refenced the paddock we had to take out for the construction, swept again for nails and screws (didn't find any), got the fence up and working and then retensioned the entire fence all around all the paddocks....then cleaned out the barn-all the pens upstairs, waterers washed and cleaned, nesting boxes cleaned, dust out, and despurred 2 roosters-spurs were growing in a circle and touching their legs so did the hot potato method and now they're nice and short again. so easy with the hot potato method-not to mention the chickens like the potato after it's all said and done! moved around some birds into new breeding groups...have a few more to catch and move, but that will have to be after dark tonight since those are free ranging right now. hatch on sunday, 5 little fuzzybutts to the brooder-4 wheaten ameraucanas and 1 welbar...for some reason 5 welbars went to the day of, and never pipped...sigh. will put another hatch in shortly....have to figure out the timing. this weekend coming up should be a few turkeys....my turkeys are laying like crazy right now, so trying to get what i can incubated. and got the rest of the barn cleaned up and ready for the 36 big rounds of hay coming this week if it ever stops raining. my potatoes are ready to harvest already, and beans out the wazoo and the tomatoes are finally ripening! BTK made short work of the tobacco hornworms (hate those things!) but not before i lost half of one of the plants. sigh. i'll have to trim that back soon. thankfully my birds love zucchini and summer squash because we are swimming in them. with the heat and rain making them grow i think i could use some of them as weapons!....lol.

lso @windwalkingwolf you'll like this one....those leghorns throwing sports....well, one has fuzzy muffs and a beard. and it's white. with red shoulders. out of light brown leghorns with no muffs/beards in site! my ameraucanas have NEVER been near them.....ever! I have other white sports looking like that one, without the muffs and beards. super weird! anyways, if you are still interested in some of these sports, i'll be travelling back to montreal sometime soon....i'll pm you.

[kenya]

WLLady Do you have any cats? I had a problem with mice and rats and got 2 cats for the barn , no more problems.

[WLLady]

i have 3.....2 are great mousers....1 not so much. they do bring critters every single night to the front door and patio doors, and multiples every night. we just have way too many mice this year.....
i also have 3 traps down (tin cats) and 3 snap traps which i can fill in 3 days, seriously....it's just a bad year for mice this year.
if i didn't have the cats and the free range chickens i would be putting down poison this year. worst i've seen them in about 10 years. i need more cats i guess LOL. (3 is too many honestly....plus the 2 free rangers that come and go....)

[Jaye]

Here it's too many chipmunks ... the little rotters are ruining our septic bed. Then there's the squirrels, who have found a way into the run and are eating the lion's share of the chicken feed every day. Need to find where they are getting in and block it off if possible. Arghh!

[windwalkingwolf]

lso @windwalkingwolf you'll like this one....those leghorns throwing sports....well, one has fuzzy muffs and a beard. and it's white. with red shoulders. out of light brown leghorns with no muffs/beards in site! my ameraucanas have NEVER been near them.....ever! I have other white sports looking like that one, without the muffs and beards. super weird! anyways, if you are still interested in some of these sports, i'll be travelling back to montreal sometime soon....i'll pm you.

Oh, you KNOW I'm interested, even more so now! I love, LOVE the oddballs, mutants and throwbacks. Truly, muffs and beard?! How old is this wonderful creature, old enough to see if the earlobes are solid white? Any comb sprigs or splits? Any with pale legs or melanized spots anywhere? It doesn't matter to me, I want them mainly for the white eggs, but little things like that give clues as to whether they are throwbacks from an old outcross, or spontaneous mutations.
I love, LOVE breeding such birds to see what goes, what stays, and what pops up only every so often. YES!!

[kenya]

WLLady would love to see the leghorn sports, always fun to see the unusual.

[WLLady]

i'll try and get some photos soon.....i actually thought this little one was an ameraucana until the fluff "went away" (as only fluff does...). He is now about 8 weeks old, and definitely FULLY bearded and muffed....and definitely a boy. sigh. with very little comb in sight. and splash i think....mainly white. so. the ONLY way i can figure that is one of the throwbacks i hatched last year is white so may be a splash....and her with light brown leghorn dad but that should give only BLUE back, and i'm definitely NOT getting all blues-but some...i'm getting a mix of blues and splashes, unless someone is carrying dominant white-which MAYBE she is....And the only time any of the leghorns were with any ameraucanas was last summer and they were grow outs together. and NO WAY would any sperm still be viable there after more than a year. seriously a year and 3 months. and my ameraucanas are all very firmly in their own pens, never been out, have their own girls....and this little bugger hatched from a white pure white egg. i will be super curious if he's carrying blue genes. even the people looking after my place the times we've been away have said "nope no one got out", besides this guy was in the incubator before i went to germany and i had not been away any time for pretty much the year before that, so i can honestly say my ameraucanas have NEVER been in that pen, and those girls have never been in the ameraucanas pens. period. this is a total mystery to me. this is the first muffed and bearded out of this group of birds, so possibly a hit mutation....spontaneous....but there have been loads of splash looking birds. and birds carrying blue and columbian, and columbian without the blue....and regular leghorn looking white with single combs and several with spiked rose combs! or just spiked combs that are kinda walnut and kinda pea and kinda not....no way will i get all the kids lined up and examined, but i'll try and get some photos.
i will likely keep a few just cause they're "fun" and i'm trying to figure out what all is in there!

i really should separate the 3 leghorns and figure out just who giving these creatures, or if it's all of them. i am getting some light brown leghorns back, so someone is okay in there, and leads me to think that dad (the one boy) i have is "ok"....but....hm.....

[Colleen Kinzie]

[quote=WLLady post_id=58265 time=1533739876 even the people looking after my place the times we've been away have said "nope no one got out"
And are these the same people that collected your ceramic eggs and put them in cartons?????