Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

MotorcycleChick said:

Ss, are you willing to travel 4-5 hours? The Pennsylvania Aviary Society has their big (I am told it is huge) swap this coming Saturday. Pay ten bucks, and sell anything you want.

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Normally I would be all over this. You all know I have no problem with traveling. However...my idiot ex totaled my car back in March & I have not had the means to replace it yet. That means...I'm grounded It would be pick up or shipping for these babies.

@jnkbtd08
The darker brown eggs were Orpington. Some combination of BBS and lemon cuckoo or partridge.
Green eggs are Orpington rooster over ee hen.
Tan eggs could be any of the above or pure swedish flower. Also the possibility of swedish flower hen with partridge Orpington project roo (one hen was a fence dumper). There was also a silkie mix with those roos (from wingstone).

The black and blue are Orpington. They will be single comb. The rest you may have to wait and see. Puffy cheeks and rose combs are ee. Feather legs generally silkie, although the one project roo carries the gene (working on getting that out). Swedish flowers are multi- colored and may or may not have crests, have single comb, colors may be any shade of red, tan, brown, blue with the white flowers developing as the get older. They are rainbows as far as color.

Confused yet?

Really surprised anything other than the dark eggs developed, as the rest had been refrigerated!

I toss eggs in the bator all the time that have been in the fridge wor up to a week & really see no diference in fertility & hatch rates.

Currently have three broodies on eggs. An Orpington on ee eggs. An ee on Orpington eggs and a silkie mix on Orpington eggs.
Like I need more birds going in to winter.
I do need replacements for the spring, though.

Jnkbtd08 said:

5 more hatched. That brings us to 23. With two albino chicks with red eyes. Lol
Two more pipped and are still trying to hatch.
So out of 29 set, 23 hatched and counting. Best hatch I ever had.

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With the amount of roosters I have, fertility has never been an issue.
Congratulations!

Any that are swedish flowers aren't worth much as meat birds, soup stock at best. The rest get decent size. Then again the SFH do make great lawn ornaments.

The light colors and chipmunk coloration comes out a lot in my birds due to the color combinations I have together. Blue and yellow, black and yellow, blue black yellow Orpington are not unusual. The ee tend to be a deep yellow combined with whatever with Orpington characteristics and puffy cheeks and rose combs.

@ Ray
Confused...lol. since the day they started hatching. So many colors and combinations.
I sold my two ee friday. Now i have three laying hens. And really two of them just turned 24 weeks

fisherlady said:

Sounds like you and DH would be awesome additions to the fort! I am impressed that you are able to can and preserve enough to get rid of the fridge...that takes a lot of work in this day and age!!

I would have loaned you our processing equipment had I realized you were ready...drop me a note next time and I'll get it to you on our way up to camp if you need it.

Molting usually isn't horrid but there are exceptions. I have heard of some people making sweaters for hard hit birds...though as DHetzel said it is usually not so bad. I do give the birds some extra protein when they are heavily molting...crushed cat food is an easy way to do this.
If you want to be entertained (or maybe horrified) you can do a search on BYC for their previous 'worst molting' contests. There's usually an active thread on it each fall.

...DHetzel's suggestions to search hoop houses is spot on. remember to take into account the heavy snow fall in your area so make the arch pretty steep and make sure the opening is not facing the prevailing wind. (we get a horrible west wind here at camp)

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Thank you, I appreciate it! If we had more than a couple to do, I think I'd be taking you up on it stat. We've been processing them at first as they "started to go"---I've been free ranging them for a few weeks but they still appear to periodically be dropping from heart attacks ever since that blasted raccoon attack. They're 7 weeks on Tues and I've only got a handful left to do, if they make it to 8 weeks. It's been a real learning experience having CX. DH and I have just been skinning them, and it's not too bad (mind you, it takes me a long time, because I'm not as adept at it I guess.... so much harder on a small bird vs a decent sized deer).
--Our prevailing wind is a beastie here too! When I have to go get a load of wood, it often feels like it could knock you right off your feet, and I've dumped more than one load of wood in the snow because of it (its a good thing the wind blows my *mf'ing* out of earshot of the kids, at least, when that happens lol). I think I'm going to use hay bales to help provide a barrier too, so that the wind doesn't rip overly much on the plastic. I still have to check out all of the links on hoop and arches, but that is a good point about steeper being more advantageous. I was initially going to plan on a wider run, but I think it'll be easier to have a stable arch with a modest width and I'll keep the run long instead.

LittleMissPurdy said:

wow..you have really stepped into the whole "homesteading" thing with both feet!! Good for you

...DH and I have physical issues, so we are limited, but try to make up our deficiencies with the "will" to be as self-sufficient as we can be...we are learning so much in our journey, like most, about ourselves along with all the other lessons...
So, your ice box actually takes a block of ice?...that is so cool..hahaha, no pun intended...and where in the world do you get ice blocks anymore??
Your stove sounds like the most awesome thing!!...You have to keep us updated on how it cooks for you!!..the regulating of a wood stove always interested me...we have a small wood stove, i haven't had the chance to use it..one of these days. Being able to do for ourselves in always a work in progress..and learning from others has helped us tremendously.

It would be awesome to have a "community"-"Fort-Fisherlady", in it's physical form as it is on this thread....so awesome, but I don't think my backyard is big enough..

...

My birds are starting their molts also...every morning looks like someone has exploded....feathers are everywhere....they are coming out easily when I pick the girls up....
I do give them more protein during this time(molting)..also helps them get "bulked up" for the colder weather...hahaha ...as if these girls need extra around the bottoms!
I do believe that Hen-Bree is trying to do the broody thing again...what in the wolrd am i going to do with these nutty girls?! She has her chest all "oven-ready"....i am not in the mood for this again....geesh...

That dark mahogany is just gorgeous!!

..no orange-y tint....I know a lot of BLRW breeders out there that would do anything for that right there!!!

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It does take a block of ice!! I cheated and have been using our freezer downstairs (the one we use to store the venison/chicken that isn't canned) and freeze pots of water that make nice blocks. It takes about 3-4 days for a block to melt, so its not bad at all, and I don't need to have more than a spare in the freezer to rotate out. DH is working on getting my stove installed today----BEYOND excited
Also-----If I ever win the lottery I'll buy a huge chunk of land and we can have our community fort!
You could totally try cooking on your woodstove top. I did with the woodstove in our basement before DH put a shroud over it to connect the radiant heat to our duct work (we got rid of the fuel oil and use only wood heat, because it was too expensive to refill the fuel oil as much as we needed it), and I could cook muffins on top of it and eggs, pretty much anything that could use a stove top. It was a lot of fun!

wingstone said:

Boy is Fisher Lady gonna be surprised when we all show up o inspect the fort.

Checked on the dry skin bird, oil gland looks fine, really just appears to be dry skin...this is a fence jumper so it is possible that she got into something that she should not have....

Plaidbattleaxe, all I can say is WOW....I wish I could get rid of the modern conveniences, hubby would never go for that.... we have a wood stove that never gets used because he will no longer deal with firewood.

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Firewood is a beast. DH chops it and I'm the pack mule who gets to stack it. Haaate it. But its like eating sauerkraut. Can't stand the stuff but I eat it because it's good for me haha. I just have to think of all the nice toasty feet I'll have this winter, while I'm sweating and stinking like a gym sock over the multi-cords of wood I'm stacking.
From reading your posts, it sounds like you've got an awesome operation going on with your birds/rabbits/farm-self-sufficiency. I'm only getting my feet wet still and hope to some day get to the point that you're at! I'd trade you some fire wood for some of that knowledge and knowhow.

Jnkbtd08 said:

@ Chiqueschicks!
Here they are, official count 18, 7 more pipped and 3 without pip

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They are SO cute!! Love how they are all so different!! Congrats on an awesome hatch!

chiques chicks said:

Three darker brown eggs were Orpington. Some combination of BBS and lemon cuckoo or partridge.
Green eggs are Orpington rooster over ee hen.
Tan eggs could be any of the above or pure swedish flower. Also the possibility of swedish flower hen with partridge Orpington project roo (one hen was a fence dumper). There was also a silkie mix with those roos (from wingstone).

The black and blue are Orpington. They will be single comb. The rest you may have to wait and see. Puffy cheeks and rose combs are ee. Feather legs generally silkie, although the one project roo carries the gene (working on getting that out). Swedish flowers are multi- colored and may or may not have crests, have single comb, colors may be any shade of red, tan, brown, blue with the white flowers developing as the get older. They are rainbows as far as color.

Confused yet?

Really surprised anything other than the dark eggs developed, as the rest had been refrigerated!

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I know I've said it before, but I wish you were closer, because I REALLY want some SFH lol. And I'd looooooove a batch of mixed eggs to hatch with my kids in the incubator for the January Hatch-A-Long. I'm thinking this upcoming spring/summer if you've got any that you want to sell and get off your hands I'll take a road trip!

MotorcycleChick said:

Ss, are you willing to travel 4-5 hours? The Pennsylvania Aviary Society has their big (I am told it is huge) swap this coming Saturday. Pay ten bucks, and sell anything you want.

Click to expand...

Where is it located? I can't find anything on it

A newbie from Northeast PA! Not new to chickens, just to the board!

hendricks115 said:

A newbie from Northeast PA! Not new to chickens, just to the board!

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welcome, westmoreland county here
is that a schipperke?