Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

Day old chicks??

It takes a Lot of paperwork to ship day old chicks and a lot more risk. I will never ship day olds. I prefer to ship started chicks when I sell any. I do sell hatching eggs sometimes. Getting ready to set some eggs now, will have chicks to sell when they are feathered enough to be safe to ship.

 

[imtrying]

thanks for your response. i cannot allow "started" chicks on my farm.

without judgement (please), does anyone know of day old chicks? if so, do you mind sharing the details?

thank you.

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha,

Smoothmule, are you NPIP?

I'mtrying, is that the reason why you cannot have started chicks? Because the same would go for day old chicks, to get NPIP, you have to have eggs, or chicks from only NPIP farms.

I prefer getting eggs myself and have learned how to incubate pretty well.

Aloha, Puhi

 

[Brada Puhi]

Smoothmule,

When I look at the UK type of Araucanas, some of them have cresting and I wonder if that type of araucana in US 1930's might be the ancestor of the Cream Legbar instead of one closer to our present US standardized breed. Interesting.

Aloha

 

[imtrying]

no. it's because i have an organic farm. i must have eggs or day olds. and i've learned, while fun and interesting, buying eggs is not the optimal way to go.

 

[ronott1]

no. it's because i have an organic farm. i must have eggs or day olds. and i've learned, while fun and interesting, buying eggs is not the optimal way to go.

For rare breeds, hatching from eggs is often the best way. Find someone that knows how to pack eggs. Sometimes even send them packing material and instructions.

Check out this thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/738943/the-great-egg-shipping-experiment

Practice and a good incubator will make a big difference too.

 

[ochochicas]

For me, I can't get started pullets because I need to vaccinate the chicks for Marek's when they are very young. I've lost over a dozen young birds already this year that were exposed to it in the fall. Fortunately the two Araucanas I bought don't seem to be affects. Some how they got lucky and dodged the bullet. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting older or younger chicks.

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha Ochocincas,

Do you vaccinate your own chickens? If so, where do you buy your stuff from and where did you learn how?

Thanks, Puhi

 

[smoothmule]

Mine are already organic. I never vaccinate, I breed for disease resistance. I don't medicate chicks. I rarely have any chicks die unless it's something like the bulb in the brooder went out and some chilled or were smothered. That stopped when I started using reptile heat bulbs and ceramic heater bulbs. Those cheap light bulbs now are horrible.

I quarantine everything new and one time had some 4 month old chicks that were in quarantine a couple of weeks come down sick, lost all but a couple but those 2 are healthy and integrated into the flock. If I had a lot of chicks dying and thought I needed to vaccinate, I would be looking elsewhere for chicks or finding a way to clean up my pens if there was disease there to prevent future outbreaks. I live way out in the country, but there are turkey barns within 6 miles and a poultry egg barn less than a half mile from me. Disease is everywhere, in the wind, carried by wild birds..etc etc. My best line of defense is keeping the flock clean, healthy and not ever going further than just basics to care for chicks, no out of the ordinary care, if they die, the reason may be a poor immune system or some other quality they're missing.

 

[Brada Puhi]

And the two who survived disease now have a better immune system. Awesome. I donʻt vaccinate but am looking into it.