Had an idea and wanted to run it by everyone for input, toss it around a bit. Has anyone ever partnered up with another farm (or chicken lady, etc) to expand their flock? Such as, one person has a lot of extra room on their property, and the other doesn't but doesn't mind building coops and...
Hi everyone - I am going to start processing my extra birds this year for meat, and intend to sell it. (I already have the proper USDA stuffs required in advance, but I can only sell direct to consumer currently; not to markets, etc.) With my new project, pretty much all the birds I am...
I'm speaking of white feathers on the face (around the eyes, on the cheeks, etc), not white skin or white lobes. I'm looking for a breed that has a white feathered face, but who has a dark crest and upper neck. The rest of the body can be dark or light, whatever the breed is, I am manly...
So I've seen lots of photos of coops with nice roost boxes and nesting areas you can access from outside, and then small runs attached (usually about 3ft high and maybe 5-10 ft long).
So I'm wondering.... how in the world do people with these low coop runs, catch their chickens? Without the...
Hi all. I've had just laying hens and a single roo in my coop, and they eat layer feed. But now I'm going to be adding pullets (3mo), and I don't think they can eat layer feed. My local store offers layer feed, scratch, chick feed, and oyster shell. I've heard of grower feed but they don't seem...
I'm told that Standard sized silkies are not in the US, only in the UK.
I find it hard to believe that not a single breeder in the US has bred their bantam silkies for size until they've gotten up to Standard, or that someone hasn't imported a Standard pair.
Anyone? Anyone at all?
Is there a place to register poultry, or etc? How do you become an 'official' breeder? I ask this because I know that putting forward a new breed requires x amount of chickens with x amount of breeders raising them, etc. So... how do you show how many you have? Or prove how many people are...
Hi all. I was wondering about the genetics of the Cream Legbar coloring and pattern.
Say I was to cross a CL with black, white, blue and silkies to give the chicks blue egg genes. (For example.)
But I didn't like the color or pattern of a CL (and don't care about auto-sexing).
How hard...
I am looking for crosses of any listed breeds below:
Silkie/Showgirl
Sumatra
Cream Legbar
Ameraucana (NO EEs, I don't want brown egg genes)
Cemani or Svart Hona
If you'll be having chicks this spring, let me know. I'd also be interested in older chicks or adult hens. I'd be *very*...
A hen was dropped off to me in terrible condition. She's dehydrated and emaciated, just sits. I'm pretty sure she is dying. And before you say, I already called the vet, and they want me to put her down. Not going to do that, I want to try something! Can anyone recommend anything? If I can just...
Hi all, one more question. I have 5 Silkie cross pullets from my mid-April hatch earlier this year (making them 8mo). They are crosses of EEs, but they are all bantam sized. They look a lot smaller than my adult Silkie hens, but maybe that's just because they have normal feathers and not...
About half my adult hens were laying a couple weeks ago. Then we had a severe cold snap (for San Diego, lol - it got down to 35 degrees a few nights in a row). A few eggs were laid that week, and the week after (nice weather again).... nothing. None of them are laying now. Is it because they...
Hi all. Next spring I intend on ordering several breeds of hatching eggs and incubating them. I intend to slip them under a broody hen at night after they hatch (I have silkies). But... how many chicks is too many for a hen? I have a separate small coop just for that. I *could* put more than one...
So I breed Dubia roaches for my bearded dragons. Dubia roaches are a large roach species who's nympbs (young) are very fat, soft-bodied, and highly nutritious. They don't bite, don't fly, and don't have any diseases - we raise them in sterile bins in the 'craft / reptile room' of the house...
Just showing off my Bengal babies. :) These are just some of them... we breed Bengals. That dark color is called 'Charcoal' which has just this year been proven by UCDavis Vet lab to be a wild-gene new color. Rosettes (leopard markings instead of just spots) are very rare in Bengals so we are...
What breed has the longest tail feathers on a hen, after the Phoenix? (Well, I don't know if they do have the longest *hen* tail feathers, but they are THE longtail breed so lets see who's what aside from them.)
So, obviously, you don't need to have a food licence or etc for selling chickens, even if the buyer intends to eat that bird. (Right?) But what about when they ask you to kill/clean the bird for them? Does it switch from 'farm animal' to 'food' the second you kill it? I'd like to sell some of my...
If you cross one breed with another to improve a trait - say, size, or egg production, etc - and then breed the cross chicks back to the original breed for several generations... at what point is it no longer considered a 'cross', but just that breed? 3 generations? 10? Or is it based on the...
Hi all. I'm doing a lot of project breeding and I'm thinking of making my extra chicks available to be shipped (only so many people locally are interested in project chicks, and there's a lot of breeders local they go to first). I don't think I'll be shipping day-old chicks - I only do 10-30...
Hi everyone - what are some good suggestions for a large or extra large sized chicken, that lays white (no brown) eggs? I'd like to add some size to my flock without adding brown egg color genes to my lines. But it seems that all the biggest chickens lay brown eggs!