Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chickielady]

Both hatchery quality Silver Laced Wyandottes. The one on the right has the wrong comb type though, common for hatchery stock.

And that is really strange, cuz Pea Combs are dominate, so if the hatchery DID have mixed breeds in the Wyandotte pen, you'd think at least they'd all have the same pea comb!

weird !

 

[Chickielady]

Well, I can hardly believe it but my chicks have hatched!

Multiple power outages (3).......hours without heat when it went out while we were away....transfer to friend's houses (6 car rides total) when our generator died
I had 19 viable eggs before the outages and today.......after a protracted 48 hours of eggs hatching that started on day 21......I have 15 chicks.

Some of them had a bit of a rough time......two with un-absorbed yolk sacs......a good number with almost 24 hours from first pip to hatch......but after resting under the warm brooder, eating a little scrambled egg and sleeping they are starting to perk up and act like happy baby chicks. I am tickled they did so well......especially since this is a batch that includes a dozen eggs I won in addition to those from my own stock.

Now I can finally get some sleep!




Olive Eggers (FBCMXBlAmeraucana, WelsummerXBWAmeraucana)



Black Ameraucana



BLR Wyandotte


BLR Wyandotte


Two BBS Ameraucanas ready to go places

You must be exhausted !!! That is alot of stress !

 

[Chickielady]

Hi everyone! New Washingtonian with chicks here! I'm in S. Seattle/Skyway/N.Renton area, and I just got 6 chicks from the Issaquah Grange. It is lovely feed store and the chicks I got seem super-healthy and happy. I'd love to connect with anyone else local. I'm using an always on heating pad as my heat source, but then my chicks are in my spare bathroom. Thankfully, we have one of those that can be dedicated to chicks!

 

[Chickielady]

I feel for you. I moved all mine into basement briefly while I reconfigured housing. I had set a rat trap, caught one, then something ate almost the whole dead rat while still in the trap. Cat/raccoon/opossum? Gross and scary.

I have deterred opossums that had invaded chimney box by putting ammonia-soaked t-shirt into the space. They left pronto. Closed up space. You could try something like that if you find where it's living.

 

[junebuggena]

And that is really strange, cuz Pea Combs are dominate, so if the hatchery DID have mixed breeds in the Wyandotte pen, you'd think at least they'd all have the same pea comb!

weird !

You mean the 'rose' comb is dominant. The single comb is recessive. Due to the cross breeding that most hatcheries do, their breeding stock might have the correct comb type, but are carrying recessive single comb genes. When those birds that are carrying a single comb gene are bred together, some of the chicks will end up with the single comb.

 

[Chickielady]

I ended up putting the two oldest birds in the cat crate. A little cozy but they got over it. So I might have to buy one more crate. I live in Walla Walla. About three hours south of Spokane. I can probably borrow one from friends also but thanks for the offer. The crates have to be small enough to fit into the prefab runs, about 2 feet tall. Or less. I am probably just overreacting but that thing freaked me out. :-(
My neighbors have chickens and chicks in some ramshackle enclosures, I will have to make sure I tell them about the possum. How do you say possum in Spanish? Maybe I'll just draw one. They'll get the idea.

I use huge rubbermaid-type tubs for me younger birds...maybe you can do that ?


There is a infrared heat lamp over each tub, held by wire & I hoist it up as the babies get older.

 

[Chickielady]

You mean the 'rose' comb is dominant. The single comb is recessive. Due to the cross breeding that most hatcheries do, their breeding stock might have the correct comb type, but are carrying recessive single comb genes. When those birds that are carrying a single comb gene are bred together, some of the chicks will end up with the single comb.

Pea comb is the most dominate, so IF you had a mixed breed in your wyandotte pen, it should hatch pea combs, not rose combs.
If you bred a rose comb to a pea comb, you'd get a cushion comb...that is how we make Chanteclers...
We had pea comb chanties sport out from cushion comb stock...so we bred rose comb into the pea comb to get them back to cushion comb.
Weird, huh ?
The other thing to remember is that many hatcheries really are not hatcheries, but Clearing Houses for hatched poultry, in other words, they buy lots of chicks & ducklings from others who just hatch those breeds, so in other words one of those birds may have come from an entirely diferent breeder than the other.

Some hatcheries actually do have their own breeding stock, but not all, and usually they do not keep ALL of their own breeding stock year to year.
It also goes to remember if someone got really nice _____________ chicks from a "hatchery" one year may not be the same provider the next year.
I have a list of those clearing houses somewhere...lost in my paperwork....

 

[HensAmongCedars]

Welcome to the club! I live about 15-20 mins from Issaquah and was just at the Grange the other day... and well, couldn't resist so got a few babies too. What did you get?

I got two Americanas, 2 Rhode Island Reds, 1 Barred Rock and 1 Welsummer. All seems to be doing well so far in the brooder in my spare bath! What about you? They were very nice at the Grange- I work on the eastside, but it was my first trip there. I'll likely have to go by whenever work takes me to Issaquah, just to see the latest gear and babies. I nearly picked up a silkie, but stopped myself. I love silkies. Is that the feed store you use? There is supposed to be a nice one in Burian too, but I've never been and don't usually drive that direction. I'm making an effort to "urban homestead" as much as my land allows. I want goats next.

 

[Leigti]

And that is really strange, cuz Pea Combs are dominate, so if the hatchery DID have mixed breeds in the Wyandotte pen, you'd think at least they'd all have the same pea comb!

weird !

I don't know. I got three total. Two of them had a bunch of white on them and then that other one not much at all. I lost one in the heat last summer. At least I think that's what killed her. They were all from the same store all together in a big group.

 

[Leigti]

I use huge rubbermaid-type tubs for me younger birds...maybe you can do that ? There is a infrared heat lamp over each tub, held by wire & I hoist it up as the babies get older.

The three youngest are in a huge Rubbermaid tub. I was hoping to move them outside this week but I'll probably wait now. I have two or three of those large Rubbermaid tub's, I use them as temporary enclosures for my tortoises. So I could do that instead of the dog crate also. I just want to get the new coop built then put them all in it. I am starting to learn that you should never throw any animal supplies away even if you don't have that animal anymore. It seems like I am always grabbing something from the other animal category when I need to Jerry rig something.