Thread formerly known as Hatch day is today - Page 3370

Originally Posted by Shannonmeans 

Yes I was referring to the Serama breeders. Most of them are nice but there are a few bad actors on there who make it very difficult for the rest. I'm afraid to post any pictures or comments on that thread. I might pull back a bloody nub where my fingers used to be. Lol! I do know that EE's genetically are way above my head. So you have to know more than the average bear to breed those. I can never figure it out. I do know that they are a breed though, because they breed true don't they? I have one little OE pullet that was bought at a show as an egg. I hatched it for my friend who bought the mixed egg lot. Then she did not want it. She has not started laying yet. And a have a couple of hatchery quailty Ameracaunas that lay green eggs and one barnyard mix that lays a huge green egg who looks like a RIR but with just a few black and white specks on her. Go figure!  I inhereted her from my brother in law who was dying with cancer and gave me his whole laying flock. Everyone else at my house lays either a white egg or more commonly a brown egg. Thats the extent of my colored egg knowledge. LOL!

Originally Posted by Triplell 

Hi everyone, I just go in from doing some very late chores (11:40 pm). I slept until noon and them had to do chores,shopping then go and see some family friends before they leave tommarrow. Things have been slow going with me as the humidity has just kicked my butt and the skeeters are in swarms. This afternoon I fell twice in the barn and once outside thank GOD I missed the concret pile in duck pen #3 and the brooder tanks (old leaky water tanks) inside the barn. So now back to my two canes and as slow as molassis but I still get things done just alot slower. Good news is the swamp that is next to Pens 2 and 3 has started to dry up, gone down by 5 inches and is back where it belongs and not in my pens. I did find my other call duck that I thought had been eaten. He was in the swamp hiding under the 4 ft tall grass and he flew right to me. When I went shopping I picked up some bird netting that I will be sewing togther to make it large enough to cover thier area so nothing can fly in and take them.

Originally Posted by Iain Utah 

Julie, you are wonderful for helping those ducks!! 

 

Hey Shannon. Hope all is well with you and yours.  Been a busy weekend here.  Mother in law is in town visiting and we have been doing a lot of family activities.  Spirit was doing so well that I allowed her to overdo it yesterday and she has been having a tough day today.  Found her splayed tonight for the 1st time in almost 6 days.  She has a vet appt at 9am tomorrow, so hope we can continue to make progress on correcting her feet & legs.  Piper (my buff boy) is much improved, however, and I plan to turn him out for a few hours tomorrow afternoon.

 

On that note, I'm exhausted and so will say goodnight.

Originally Posted by JulieNKC 

Seramas? Lol The people I'm talking about aren't on here, but chicken people all seem the same. I'm just tired of my EE's being called mutts and being told that any bird that isn't any other breed is an EE basically. Even if it lays a brown or white egg. EE's might be mutts, and there will be an occasional one that missed the blue gene and doesn't lay blue/green (which I think then makes it a barnyard mix, not EE), but whatever. According to these people basically if I breed my leghorn to my silkie I can call the chicks EE's. 

Thanks, I've learned most of it from here. There's tons of information, and I lurked and read this site for a lonnnggg time before I ever got my chickens or joined.

Night! Added anything to your zoo lately? You know, if you moved up here by me we could combine our zoos and have quite the impressive one, lol. 

Originally Posted by Triplell 

I did clip them about 1 month ago so was very surprised to say the least when he was gone. I only clip the right side feathers that way I can always remember. I am about to do the same with some of my RIR's as two of them wont stay in with their new man and he is getting upset. I have 3 different roosters and they can all see eath other. Its almost 3 am and I have alot of work to do tommarrow with sewing the netting and putting it up then gonna seperate my Large ducks from the calls. The large drakes are getting pushy with the call girls. Goodnite:caf

Originally Posted by CelticOaksFarm 

Julie, good catch yesterday! The khaki boy sounds like he had quite the body guard set up. Nice the parks are happy to have your help too. I agree the brown layers should be culled from EE to keep the pastel egg colors stronger. I deffinetly wouldn't call a white layer (silkie) crossed to a brown egg layer an EE. Birds crossed with Ameraucuana and or Auracana (both true blue egg layers) would be EE.
EE's fairly straight forward, they are cross between a blue egg gene carrier, and none blue egg carrier. Pea combs are most likely to give green/blue/olive toned eggs. Straight combs are most likely to be some shade of brown. EE's never breed true, as in you can breed a blue roo to a blue hen and get a rainbow of feather colors in the off spring. Sadly the hatcheries don't sell anything but an EE miss labeled, and people just need to get over their snootiness when it comes to it all.
EE are mutts, they don't breed true, but they are some of my favorite chickens to have here. They lay wonderfully in our heat too, so even better, and they make a nice looking egg basket. Anyways...
Shannon if I could keep them all I would. (goslings) however if I kept everyone this year, I couldn't keep some next year. Plus they all don't measure up to stay for breeding purposes. Some will be very close, some will be a matter of two of equal quality and picking one of the two. I actually have a list of key items to judge them on and photo examples when I can to use for comparison. My goal is to pull and run the following for 2013:
Grey - trio or maybe two pairs
Whites - three trios (have two this year)
Lavender - trio
Lilac - trio
Buff - trio
Then I have the splashes and saddlebacks. Have a number of lilacs growing out to pick from as well as grey. Already pulled my whites, and then the lavenders this past week.
Hubby got released from our local hospital, his Dr there wants to have him sent to the Mayo. We shall see what the militates response to that is. I am expecting a fight ahead of us. He was happy to be home, and is doing pretty good.
Sun is getting its rear up now so I can see how many branches fell over night from the winds. Glad we didn't get the 9" of rain some on the other coast of FL got yesterday. The rain we got was enough after the weeks of rain we had already.
Happy Monday all.

Originally Posted by Kevin565 

I unfortunately have added anything lately. Luckily in a few weeks is when everyone seems to have birds for craigslist  so I should be able to add some then. And  With the way we add animals we could have an amazing Zoo! 

Originally Posted by Kevin565 

Also I am defiantly NOT a morning person 

Originally Posted by Iain Utah 

Good morning.  Trying to wake up with my coffee before leaving for Spirit's vet appt.  She is looking much better this morning and seems like she just needed a good rest to recover from all her running around. I am most curious to see the vet's reaction to the dramatic change in her mobility and look forward to the next step in this long journey towards Spirit having somewhat normal feet/legs.

 

One other piece of news.... I met a guy yesterday who runs a local avian sanctuary and he has extra female geese that I can adopt (for a whopping $15 donation) to balance out my boy/girl ratio in my free range flock.  He said he has an 8-10 year old african girl (I have her on hold) and either an Embden or Toulouse girl.  I am super pleased to have found these geese and feel great to also help out our sanctuary.  Hope to get to the sanctuary tomorrow or the next day to pick them up.

 

Hope everyone has a happy Monday!

Originally Posted by JulieNKC 

I'm going to have to separate my ducks too. Especially with the new drakes, I just have too many boys so I'll have to set up a bachelor pad for some of the boys soon.

That's what I think too. People buy EE's expecting birds that are at least likely to lay blue or green, so keeping brown/white/pink layers and breeding and selling them as EE's doesn't make sense to me.  I like them because they are pretty, and you never know what color you'll get. I like having a colorful flock.

What are you looking for? 

Me either. 

Great news on spirit, and about the sanctuary. I wish there was one around here, maybe there wouldn't be so many ducks at the parks for me to grab.  Too hot today, and the kids woke up early. I'm hoping the little babies made it last night, and can another night and I'll try for them tomorrow morning. By then who knos, there'll probably be more. 

Originally Posted by Kevin565 

I don't know why but I LOVE the looks of Shamos. They just look so raptor like. Also I'm waiting for a emu chick to be on so I can snatch it up