Pennie's Page
Sept. 28, 2010
This is a page about me & for myself and my friends. I hope it will be fun as I slowly collect my thoughts about what I hope to accomplish with this endeavor.
My favorite chicken - most definitely the adorable little Silkie. I have other chickens for eggs and meat, but my Silkies are for ME!! My husband calls them loafing freeloaders because they serve no purpose other than to give me great joy and amusement. He says all they do is process chicken feed (well our garden fertilizer is now free).
I have 3 dogs (of which 2 serve no other purpose than giving me great pleasure and comfort). All of my dogs are rescues. I used to show Newfoundlands and then looked around at all of the homeless pups and decided that I would do my part and save 1 dog at a time x's 3. The 3rd dog that actually has a purpose is my chocolate lab (also a rescue). She loves nothing more than to fetch and can keep the grandkids occupied for hours. Nobody has yet to wear her out. But she is also a great bird dog. Once she is away from the house she will find,point and retrieve any bird that is shot. She will not touch a bird in the yard. She won't even pick up a bird that she had already retrieved earlier. GOOD GIRL DIVA!!!
I have approximately 60 birds at the moment. That number will drop to about 30 this weekend. That's when I will find out if my crossbreeding has given me the desired results for "freezer camp." I crossed a Production Red x standard Cochin roo with several different breeds (bantam Barred Rocks, bantam Polish, white Wynndottes and a standard cochin). So far, when I pick up the birds, there seems to be some heft to them. Granted they won't weigh out like broilers, but there has been far less food consumption.
I also have my Production Reds for laying. I keep my standard blue Cochin for setting on the eggs and to replentish my layer supply every year. I also use an incubator to help out good ol' Bertha.
This year was unusual for me because my little bantam Barred Rock decided that she too would help Bertha and together they sat on 19 eggs. GOOD GOING GIRLS!!!
The breeding of Bertha to Big Guy (her son whose father is a PR) produced 3 beautiful sons. I will be posting pictures of everything soon. Silver is her oldest son and is a gorgeous light blue with just a touch of light gold on his wings. He looks like silver and gold. The other two are the midtone blue with more gold. Very interesting, and nice and heavy. I will be breeding Silver back to his mom next spring.
Well enough for today. As I said, I will be posting pictures soon.
OCT. 20, 2010
Today I gave away 18 of my Silkie babies and sold one. I do believe that they are going to a great home. Someone I met through this website. It's really awesome to meet some of the people through BYC. I gave them away because they were sold to me as pet quality (even though the one breeder I got them from said that some of them could be show quality. I have to admit some of them were starting to look really nice, but I didn't care for the 2 white cockerels, and I have decided that blue and splash just aren't the colors that I prefer. I want birds with a background. I want to know their breeding. I love the whites, but I don't think white is a good color for a budding showwoman. Far too much competition out their. I don't want to have to take a 100 birds to a show to maybe win something. I have decided to go with partridge. I have seen some really spectacular birds and I like the variations in color. It makes it very interesting.
I kept 1 little white Cockerel/pullet. It's name is Jazz Par. It has become a house chicken. I swore on my mother's grave that I would never do that - sorry mom. I tend to think Jazz is a cockerel that thinks he's a princess. He likes to sit on my desk while I'm on the computer. He just sits on his burgandy towel and watches me. Sometimes he comes over and pecks at the keys. Pretty soon he's going to have his own screen name.... I'll have to post pictures of him so maybe everybody can guess. He's about 28 wks old, so he should start to at least attempt to crow - or lay an egg............ He's the only one out of 20 Silkies that I can't tell what sex he is... He doesn't have real predominant pin feathers and he's very laid back. Very submissive. No alpha dog here that's for sure.
Well, I'm done again for now. So I hope to post again soon.
October 30, 2010
I can't figure out how to upload pictures on here (to be quite honest, I haven't really taken the time.
Jazz is a pullet.
I have given away and sold all but her and have decided to go all out with these Silkies. I am going to limit myself to the partridge variety and with the help of Connie (Premier Silkies), Amy Piehl and George Mihalik I am going to work on perfecting this variety.
I have purchased 2 birds from Connie and am in the process of obtaining 3 more birds through George. I have also acquired a beautiful little hen (Bobbi Porto bloodlines) through the great auction site here on BYC.
I plan on starting small, and just really working on quality and not quantity.
That's all again for today. I will really attempt to learn how to get some pictures on here.
