Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[rapunzel162]

What a cute pic!!!!

 

[BGMatt]

I've wasted time I should be sorting socks trying to get a picture of the new kids, but Malvina Is Not Amused. There are at least five (two blue, three splash) I think but I've never seen more than three at once.

"Not amused" might be the understatement of the year. Very cool photo though! Love it.

 

[SadieSue]

I think my Olive Egger chicks are 5 weeks this Thursday but there were enough of them that they were quickly outgrowing their brooder and creating a lot of dust in the computer room that I decided they could move outside. The days have been warm so they spend the daytime in my large covered X-pen and at night pop them back into their plastic brooder and put it in the garage to sleep.

I'm so pleased with the variety of colors from these chicks. I got the eggs in Florida from cpartist. The first generation hens are blue and black marans X Welsummer and bred to a Wheaten Ameraucana rooster. Those offspring are then covered by a Splash Copper Marans rooster.

So I've got a mix of F1's and F2's in this bunch - I just don't know who's who out of what egg since they all hatched when I wasn't looking.

But if I'm guessing correctly - it's looking like I've got 2 boys and 5 girls! Definitely keeping the little splash and the little girl with typical Easter Egger coloring. I may keep one of the blues if they're girls too. I believe my two cockerels are the ones in the upper right of the pic. Unfortunately those boys will be looking for new homes or going to auction.

Can't wait to see how they all feather out!

 

[Stumpfarmer]

"Not amused" might be the understatement of the year.  Very cool photo though!  Love it.

She's "pecked" me twice while I was messing around trying to get a look- for values of "pecked" which are a love tap compared to one of the Wyandottes who's drawn blood because I was slow putting the lid on the waterer. She's a lovely bird and raises nice calm chicks- the difference between the Hamburgs she hatched last year and the ones I'm raising now is enlightening: I could pick up any of the hen-raised birds when I needed to, but the incubator ones are utterly nuts.

I know that's not the way it's supposed to work, but early learning, ya know?

 

[Chickielady]

Part of the thing about being revaccinated is that some viruses mutate fast (influenza in humans, bovine viral diarrhea) so the immune system doesn't recognize them from one year to the next.

Organisms are also thrifty: they don't produce proteins they don't need to, since they need all the nitrogen they get to produce proteins they do. Antibodies to cyclical diseases like whooping cough fade with time, especially when they're killed pathogen sorts (the old pertusis vaccine was an injured type, and caused obvious neurological side effects in a high enough number of babies that parents resisted it- I'm a provaccine person, after nearly dying of measles and being old enough to know people who had polio, but when my daughter had a 24-hour screaming spell after her first DPT, her doctor and I agreed not to vaccinate her for whooping cough until she was five). That's why so many adults got caught in the 1999 whooping cough epidemic, including everybody at my house, and everybody at the small private school my kids attended.

I would rather egg-vaccinate for both Marek's and salmonella (my British friends are confounded that salmonella vaccine is not the rule here) but the number of eggs I hatch and the fact that I'm in a high wild bird, high unvaccinated domesticated fowl neighborhood means that it would be spitting into the wind.

In other news: I just had my already exhausting, exhausted day complicated by the fact that somebody at my cousin's house decided to deal with a damaged watering trough float by sticking an open hose on trickle into a hundred and forty gallon watering trough, for a dozen cows, eleven calves, and a bull. There is really no words for the number of ways that's wrong, but the list starts with: they did that, and they didn't call me, nor my sister's household so we could fix it before the cows were so dry that they drank the trough dry and then pulled the tank away from the hose and flooded the place.

So, yeah, now I need to go do the chores I went out to start an hour and a half ago.

I've got to learn some of Mike's creative swears so I can express my opinion of that behavior in depth and detail.

Oh I so wish we could egg-vaccinate, how much easier that would be !
But yes, in a bottle of 1000 doses (minimum) so much is wasted in our "hobby farm" operations.

 

[Chickielady]

Where do you get your vaccine?

I do not think BYC wants us to post links to places where sales go on due to irritating sponsors, so I will send you a PM

 

[Chickielady]

Hi everybody! I just thought I would check in. I am doing okay. I have been having computer problems, and need to buy a new laptop. So until I can do that I finally broke down and got my old old laptop out, and will be using it until I can find a new laptop. Other than that I have been reading a lot, and trying to keep all the critters fed, and a live.

Oh so good to see you GF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

Hello everyone!

It's been a very long time since I've dropped in (I have an extremely difficult time keeping up with this thread) but I have a pretty URGENT situation here. I have a sick duck and I have no idea what's going on with her or what to do. She seemed fine last night when I put them away. Today I was gone all day and when we got home we let them out of their yard to free range and that's when we noticed that something wasn't right with her. She let us approach her and pick her up without a peep and she never does that, she always keeps her distance. I checked her over and didn't find anything obvious so we took her down to their wading pool and when she got in she just sat there for a good hour not really doing much. She's drinking but then it's all coming back up. She looked like she was having a seizure at one point and then couldn't walk but now she can. She's got no interest in food at all and doesn't even try to keep up with the other ducks like she usually does.

She's about 1 yr old
Blue Swedish
Feed store duckling that we've had since she was a tiny baby


Google hasn't been much help.

IDK if you have found any help, but seems to me the duck has a blocked crop, same as would happen to a chicken...hope you get her back well.

 

[Chickielady]

I think my Olive Egger chicks are 5 weeks this Thursday but there were enough of them that they were quickly outgrowing their brooder and creating a lot of dust in the computer room that I decided they could move outside. The days have been warm so they spend the daytime in my large covered X-pen and at night pop them back into their plastic brooder and put it in the garage to sleep.

I'm so pleased with the variety of colors from these chicks. I got the eggs in Florida from cpartist. The first generation hens are blue and black marans X Welsummer and bred to a Wheaten Ameraucana rooster. Those offspring are then covered by a Splash Copper Marans rooster.

So I've got a mix of F1's and F2's in this bunch - I just don't know who's who out of what egg since they all hatched when I wasn't looking.

But if I'm guessing correctly - it's looking like I've got 2 boys and 5 girls! Definitely keeping the little splash and the little girl with typical Easter Egger coloring. I may keep one of the blues if they're girls too. I believe my two cockerels are the ones in the upper right of the pic. Unfortunately those boys will be looking for new homes or going to auction.

Can't wait to see how they all feather out!

Luanne has nice birds

 

[TeamCutler]

Maybe it's just me but two of my girls really put the cuckoo in cuckoo maran! Serious nerd birds!