Sending you love and hugs from Australia Lacy! So sorry to hear this news!!! It always hurts so much, but some more than others I admit, it's like some just worm their way into our hearts so much it feels like a piece of us is missing when they cross the rainbow bridge.
Hug your flock, keep...
Hello!
These are all excellent command lines you can quite easily train chickens to do if you do it with repetition, patience and TREATS to pattern it into their brains. Never underestimate the power of greed in a chicken!
Another useful one is Shoulder, doing a double finger tap on your...
Yes, it's a well known old 'secret chicken keepers trick' lol, hundreds of years old to DIY lemon chicken by adding lemon to feed the week before slaughter. The reality is citrus has bleed through effect on all things poultry, the more you feed, the more it bleeds through.
Hope this helps...
Old style apples in large amounts inhibit laying in my experience, I've done some experiments years ago. I too was taught the old 'chicken keepers secret knowledge' type thing by my Mentor and had to test it! Revisiting it as an adult, I noticed modern apple types didnt inhibit as much as old...
Thankyou! I will try a new thread, and see what happens! Yes, we all get judging bias no matter where we are in the world, sadly. They should stick to their local S o P "poultry bible" of course but that isn't always the case. And most are old with only descriptions or drawings or refer to old...
Thankyou, the Butterscotch project has been many years work. Silver Wheaten is a good idea! I commented to them on changing the neck hackle to pure white after, from SW, I've never gotten one with anything but wheaty, or wheaty streaks.
I'm a traditionalist trained, not a geneticist trained, so...
If you went via the path of Silver Wheaten, you would still need something to 'white out' the neck hackle. I'm a traditionalist trained, not a geneticist trained, so I bow to expertise in gene theory. I know the colours that come out that way still don't have a pure white hackle, and that means...
You
You are welcome!
Would love to see pics of your three!
The Black Tail Wheatens and the Blood Pyle would be in those breeds too, so you will have plenty of options, and yes, often it's a matter of picking a good foundation bird within a breed, with your preferred colour, and going from...
Hi,
I would start with Old English Game Bantam breed, and use the colours Clay hen or Black tail Wheaten hen, and cross them under a Blood Pyle cock, aka Red Pile (basically cock bird is white with blood red wing patches) to get that colour.
Also try in reverse, Cock bird black breasted, black...
Keep the membrane damp, dont let it shrink wrap! I dab my finger in warm water and dab the membrane around the hole at times like this. I put painters masking tape over the hole of anything I need to open early to check, then 'close' the end again. Because that tape is paper based it breathes...
You are welcome, remember PERSISTENCE and PATIENCE.
Without a senior trainer or mentor there to judge a working or performance animals IQ (and EQ) before you start and know you have a good training prospect, it can feel a bit hit or miss at first, but it feels better than a million dollars...
Traditionally cluckies were force-stopped because we were desperate for the eggs they would otherwise be laying. It was life or death for us humans. These days, few of us will starve if a hen sits a 21 day cycle on some plastic eggs, you steal a few every night for the last few nights, and by...
Another view.
It's natural for them to go into the zone, this is caused by a body metabolism slow down significantly just for cluckyhood. Many will poop twice to 3x a week like clock work, (get up, POOP, drink, eat, eat, drink, stretch, and sit back down in approximately 20 mins usually...
Old English Game BANTAMS are fantastic mousers, my lot tear apart anything meaty that gets in near their pens. No mouse stands a chance, and I can always tell who got the rear end, because quite often there will be a tail hanging out a hens beak!!! 😂😣 The amount they can unhinge their beak open...
Hello,
I believe I can help.
You can cue crowing, just like you can cue other behaviors in avians, chickens included.
The "gold standard" of cued behaviour training is 'poop on command' fairly easy with parrots, harder with chickens but eminantly doable. Time how often they do it, Wait till...
(Translation of Article mentioned above...)
SCHIJNDELAAR
The Schijndelaar received official recognition in 2001 from the then NHDB and is therefore the newest Dutch chicken breed and also the only recognized Dutch chicken breed, which lays green eggs.
Breed characteristics
The Schijndelaar...
The earlier photo of the Dark legged Partridge colouration hen with the willow green legs, (Ive circled her in blue) is definitely your strongest, judging colour wise, show quality colour. You can create a Dark legged Partridge male by pairing her with the light legged cock and playing the...