Cubalaya Thread For Sharing Pics and Discussing Our Birds - Page 89

 

They are three months old.

Multiple spurs is easy to detect, you don't need a picture and it can be done from day of hatch. Look at a regular single spurred hen first, there will be one large scale where the cock would grow a spur. On a multiple spurred bird, they will still have the main large spur scale, but they will also have a curved line of smaller round scales extending up and down the leg from the main bud. The main bud will be the largest central one, as you get farther away, the buds will get smaller. The spur line will sort of curve almost onto the bottom of the foot.if you compare a multiple spur vs. a single spur you will find them very distinct. Once you know how, it's very easy.

OK, so one little bud atop the regular spur bud may just be a loose scale? I guess I need to get her off the roost to look.
 

That may not be multiple spurs. The old original Cuban breeders used the term "rosary" spurs. So imagine what a slightly curved string of beads pressed into the leg would look like. That's what you are looking for.

"Hope is the thing with feathers"
 

Awoke to a chicken slaughter this morning.  Praise God it was not my Cubalayas (they are in a large cage for protection).  Looks like it was a badger.  I found body parts of at least three chicken. It went right into the coup and picked out my young game hens I raised this year. It did not go after the more then 15 cockerels in the same coup. Arggg!  Tonight I am going into lock down.  All my chickens will be locked up. No sleep for me. Tonight it dies, what ever it is.  

I'm so sorry. It must be hard to keep badgers out. They are big, strong and determined.
 

Whoah, badgers are something I am glad we don't have! Not sure how one builds a pen to withstand their digging abilities. Something like a bunker I guess.
 

 

They live around here and usually don't cause problems.  I see them sometimes or the fresh holes they dig.  I leave them alone if they leave my chickens alone.  They will pick off a chicken that starts sleeping in the bushes on the border of the woods.  This is the first time I have had one come right into the coup like this.  Now feral cats on the other hand are a different story.

Took some pictures of the girls today. Here are Fay (left) and Peep at 17 1/2 weeks.

Not the greatest picture but then my purpose today was to get pictures of the Anconas

 

 

Here they are on top of the "Not effective in keeping chickens where you want them" 4' high gate. Just another perch to them! Even the Black Astralorps and Easter Eggers can fly right to the top.

 

 

Edited by bruceha2000 - 10/13/12 at 5:22pm