ChickenGuppy

I am 40 years old. I am not your normal gal. I prefer to work hard but in 2017 I was diagnosed with MS so I push myself as hard as I can go but right now it's a little more than someone's normal. I own Amber's Poultry Farm in Midland, TX. I raise turkeys, quail (not very good with them yet), chickens; solid white silkies, show quality Jersey Giants, marans, olive eggers, blue egg layers and sex links.

What we accomplished this year: we raised the rabbit hutch about 4 1/2 feet from the ground for my Flemish giants. I also have calico Holland lops too and pretty mixes. We built a grow pen and I started hatching like crazy the bluest eggs I could find and the darkest eggs I could find and bought chicks: feather leg cuckoo marans, white silkies, sex links and white Jerseys. We built a pen in the middle of the driveway and reinforced it where the rabbits couldn't get out. I bought mixes from all over so they wouldn't inbreed, the top sellers are the English Spot colored ones. All the chicks I didn't want (paler eggs) I put in the pen in the middle of the driveway and all the darker eggs that hatched I put in my grow out pen in the back. That is where I hatched my Americanas, araucanas and easter eggers. I got a few other pure breeds out of my hatching eggs but other than my purebreds I have going for next year these will probably be mixed going over my maran rooster to create more olive eggers. Then we caught all of the geese, Peking ducks and chickens. Thankfully they were all under my trees where I built their pen. When my chicks grew up we placed them with my other laying chickens in the new pen and as I learned the blue and green egg layers like to fly over the fences. SO we had another project and made the fences about 8-9 feet tall. I took all of the ones in jail (repeat offenders) and they joined the rest of the chickens. We took down the grow out pen and used that to expand the other pen and make it a lot bigger. We let the Flemish Giants out in my dog run while we were renovating. It started getting too hot for them so I let them out and they had the run of the front property. Mostly they stayed in the front yard. It wasn't easy lifting this massive walk through rabbit area. It took a massive amount of jacks, cinder blocks and large wooden spools. We took out the lops and put them under the tree in the front yard. This project took most of the summer. On occasion one of the kids would forget to shut the gate and most of the mixed rabbits would get out and it would take us weeks to catch them. They would be good for a few days and someone would leave the gate open again. I was guilty once and I am sure every one else was too once. Catching them was a family chore with a long pole and a fishing net. That's how we catch our chickens anyways. After spending days trying to catch rabbits NO ONE left the door slightly ajar anymore. As soon as we get our NPIP certification and teach these chickens not to lay everywhere and get my front fence higher to keep my neighbors' chickens out then they will get to go back into the pasture again. With me being sick in the heat egg hunting every day was torture. I am talking 30-45 minutes a day hunting down eggs. We are also going to be cutting down most of the mesquite this fall so when we do let them out there'll be less places from them to hide them. I heard a quote about getting your children hooked on chickens because if they do they will never to be able to afford drugs, it's the truth. They do take up time and money but I do enjoy them. My fiancé was saying teasing me about my poultry hobby and I said what about your video games lol? I kept a tally of profits vs losses and showed him and then I asked him how much money did his video games make him this month? They pay for their own feed most of the time sometimes extra. You do what you love and I love chickens, he loves video games, we love each other so it all works out. He helps me when I really need it, on the weekends we have family game night. I have my incubator and young chicks in the house and he has his game hooked up to the living room tv. We have made a life together. It's not perfect but I couldn't ask for a better one.

The rest of my 2019: Hopefully this winter we can have our wedding. I get sick in the summers now which is hard for me because that's when I am most busy. His two oldest 17 and 15 are a great help. I am so blessed to have my family. I have some silkie eggs and turkey eggs in the incubator. After they hatch I will be cleaning it out until January when the roosters go back in with the chickens.

My 2020 project: I will be working on getting the dark maran eggs darker and buying more too and all other shades from dark blue to olive from my other chickens. Those are my breeding goals for 2020. I am trying to get the fertility up on my turkeys so I have two more younger males that I will be dividing the females between next year. I just took the roosters out a few weeks ago so the chickens can prepare for the cold and grow their feathers back. The silkie roo gets to keep his hens. He's a little less into plucking lol. I free range everyone and I don't use any chemicals on them or anywhere on my farm. Truly organic. I have everyone penned up for now while I am training my new poultry dogs. I don't want the chickens to get eaten until they learn better. I am going to be breeding white giants also. I will be breeding more colors of Muscovy for next year. This year I hatched more blues, whites and chocolates and sold my black and white drakes. I will also be pulling out my solid white drakes and replacing them with fresh blood.

Something I witnessed with the large amount of ducklings I had this year for the first time, they became carnivorous. I had to put the offenders in time out. They sure did make a mess. They killed about six and wounded several, maybe like 30ish. Most of the offenders were the last born, my tiniest whites. They were solid, mixed with blue and some were splashed with chocolate. I give them all 20% chick feed but no more to keep them from getting angel wing. My supplier ran out so I had to wet down layer pellets until he got more in. They were out for three days and bam...little land sharks. Even after I got their food in and fed them they still were misbehaving. I have them now in stacked cages separated from each other but still where they can see each other. That made for EXTREMELY long days, catching, watching, disinfecting wounds. I am SO thankful next year I will be leaving them with their moms as I have picked out all the black and whites to sell and yes some of them too caused chaos. I have them confined to a pen in the middle of my driveway in my grow pen. Those are less violent offenders. I will be trying no chew spay and seeing if it works where they can all go back in together as soon as I able to tag the ones I am keeping and put them back with their moms. I don't want any inbreeding this spring which is one reason I separated them. The other reason is because I am selling all of the black and white babies. All the black and white females will be bred to my blue males next year so I can increase the amount of blues in my flock. The chocolates will go in a pen with the chocolates and the whites will all go together. One thing I have noticed with Muscovies is they do try to inbreed. I have watched siblings try to breed each other and parents and offspring so this year I tried to stop that by separating all of the babies and taking out the drakes. I did not have any chocolate male nor blue males so this makes things easier for next year. The chocolates mostly had the blacks and the whites mostly had the chocolates. The blacks and whites I bred in my front yard did throw me a small percentage of blues from my male I had out of one of my chocolates this spring. I think now I have six blue so I am hoping for way more next year. Well that's it for my crazy boring poultry color obsessions. The Muscovy is for preference, the eggs are to help prevent me from having to do the farmers markets next year. I AM NOT a political person and when people get jealous of your selling skills and start changing rules in the market based upon this then it is time to change my life and make it less dramatic. #1 I brought baby floofy fuzzy little lop bunnies to the farmers market with the cuddliest softest ears. People flocked to my booth to pet them and then bought my eggs so a rule was made, only dogs allowed. #2 I have MS so selling in the summer is really hard for me so when I sold out I packed up and went home, new rule I have to sit there till it's over doing nothing. #3 I made a beautiful display of all my most gorgeous eggs for the customers to see iced at the bottom. I would always sell out. I got complaints so new rule, eggs had to be kept in the cooler at all times unless for sale. The ones on the table had to be marked display only and not sold. The last market I had spent time blowing out eggs for display. An older gentleman used his hover craft to spy on me and confront me and then spend the rest of the market tattling on me eyeroll. So yes a pain to breed MORE beautiful eggs than I already have but sacrifices must be made.

Amber's Poultry Farm
https://goo.gl/maps/LYb9P5UWgpNZ6vzZA