➡I accidentally bought Balut eggs: 2 live ducks! Now a Chat Thread!

[Conan]

One more and I'll stop.

 

[ShrekDawg]

He is, indeed. He's at a pretty great age. Six months and appears to be potty trained. He slept through the night. Brought him on a short walk after playtime and he followed suit with my leash trained boy and automatically heeled. Kept looking at the big boy as to what to do, which makes my job a heck of a lot easier. He's also silent, which is nice. My dobie is silent as well. Kinda weird watching them play. Utterly noiseless.

He sounds like a really great dog!! Seems very smart too!! Funny about the silent thing though.. Libby and Franklin are definitely not silent playing lol

Awww, just look at that face! He is so beautiful!!! Congrats on your new pup!

X2

Thanks! He's a real gem!

He seems like it!!

I will say, I have laughed my butt off at Bowie trying to mate with one of the older girls. He is not very graceful. He'll get this one to squat and he TRIES to hop on. Finally makes it. Tries to do his thing while keeping his balance. Fails miserably and often falls off head first over the girls head. Almost like a somersault. So he tries to hop back on and the girl is like, nope and walks away. He chases her like get back here I wasn't finished. She's like, yes you are. The end. It's hilarious!

Negan is the opposite. He’s so big and he pins the hens down and wants to break their legs in the process. Today he chased, grabbed, and pinned down one of the tiny 18 week old pullets who isn’t even remotely close to laying and I about took his head off with the shovel I had. I’ve lost my patience with him, his nonstop crowing, and his aggressiveness towards the hens.

omg he sounds horrible! ha

Bowie and Elvis crow all throughout the day but I don't mind it. They can be quite chatty. But Negan! Oh my! The big meany! That stinks. Do you think ya'll will end up replacing him? Or is he a specific needed breeder at the moment?

i dont think i could handle nonstop crowing lol

Specific breeder and my mom’s favorite thing for some odd reason. That stupid thing will be with us until the day he dies. I’m keeping a replacement on hand from this hatch if they turn out nicely, but really I would like to save one of his Splash grandsons. Negan was raised as the only rooster, and no older hens to beat him up, so he thinks he can do as he pleases to the hens. Thus the namesake lol.

that stinks!! ugh.

I found if I used an emery cloth to gently remove a layer of dark colored tinting from each egg, I could get a better candle....similar to removing the first green blush from a Cayuga duck egg.

@KDOGG331 said...
"Thank you! This is very very helpful!! Thinking maybe I should add Wyandottes and Buckeyes and remove some of the other birds haha but are your birds hatchery or breeder birds? Do you think that makes a difference in the personality? Do you think a hatchery Wyandotte would be meaner?"


My first Columbian Wyandottes were from a breeder 7 years ago. He got his from a breeder 10 years earlier and had raised them. Those had been closed flocks. Along the way I brought in the Blues and Blacks along with Silver Laced chicks purchased from Atwood's. They get their birds from Ideal and McMurray hatchery. I sold the Silver Laced and I bought Whites from a quality breeder. I have raised all my Wyandotte since.

The Buckeyes were from a show breed line. My girls did lay fewer eggs in winter. The hens were great mothers.

Not sure if the attitude of hatchery chicks is vastly different from breeder lines, but I know size and vigor can be. Of course, hand-raised chicks are always more gentle.

My experience has been that breeder lines go thru a rigorous selection process before the birds reach adult stage breeding. Often a breeder will wait to put hens in a breed pen until they reach a specific age and weight...thus getting better quality eggs for hatching stronger chicks.

Each year I hatch between 150 to 200 Columbian Wyandotte chicks and raise them to 6 months. As they grow, I cull out any birds that are not to standard and that have defects in attitude, growth, or vigor.
At 6 months I separate the "best" 30 to 40 to watch/grow to 9 months for possible breeders and the rest go to butcher/fattening pens or to a pullet pen to grow out for the layer pen.
At 9 months, I judge the "best" again looking for specific traits for the breed standard that I want for my breeder pens. I held out 15 in 2018 to continue maturing to breeding age. The pullets that did not make this selection were moved to the layer flock and the roosters went to freezer camp.

On the other hand, hatchery birds are raised to laying age and monitored for egg size to reach target performance size for hatching. Some hatcheries separate roosters from hens during the growth process, some don't. Eggs are then collected for hatching since that is where the hatchery makes money. I don't know their selection process for selling birds other than chicks.
If you are buying older birds from a hatchery instead of chicks I would recommend confirming there is a full guarantee for replacement or refund for those older birds.
AND quarantine the new birds separate from your home flock for a full 30 days!

Thanks again!! Very helpful yet again. And WOW you sure do have a rigorous selection process! that’s awesome though!! Just means you really care about the breed and standard and everything. Can definitely see why breeder would be better but at the same time, it is hard to find one breeder that breeds everything and if I went to multiple breeders, I would probably have to quarantine the chicks from each other too? Which would be kind of a pain and/or make integration harder, want them to be one new flock/raised together, plus I think a lot of breeders have higher minimums, right? Idk. I like the convenience of a hatchery but I definitely like supporting breeders too and of course the quality of the birds is way better.

O

Omg he's so sweet! And that smile in the last pic! How's he adjusting? Does he seem well behaved?

He's doing really well. Pretty much a typical puppy... bursts of energy following by long naps
He's catching on quick and already knows that he's not allowed in the kitchen and that wild playtime is for the great outdoors. No accidents in the house, and he does know how to ask to go out. I'm grateful for the folks who fostered him. They obviously did a lot of the leg work on the potty training!
He did get out without a leash and immediately chased a chicken, but seemed mainly interested in the chase aspect. He had never seen them before and dogs do love chasing birds! We will be working on that with him pretty rigorously over the next month.
He's a complete sweetheart. Very submissive and eager to please, which I always look for in a dog.
How's Puck doing? He 500 pounds yet?

Wow he really truly sounds like an amazing dog!! I think you really lucked out with this one!

Fair enough. He's certainly earned that name!

Matching names, so cute

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OMG!! ADORABLE!! I see they have already taken quite a liking to each other and that he does well with cats!! I love that they are all getting along so well

 

[ShrekDawg]

An updated wishlist lol yes I added more but when you guys said the ones I HADN’T added were your favorites, I knew I had to add them lol but thinking I might take some out, idk. Probably should not add that many birds

But thinking I may just keep them totally separate and have a new coop and flock lol

 

[CrazyCrttr75]

An updated wishlist lol yes I added more but when you guys said the ones I HADN’T added were your favorites, I knew I had to add them lol but thinking I might take some out, idk. Probably should not add that many birds

But thinking I may just keep them totally separate and have a new coop and flock lol

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Yours is cheap compared to one that I did. *sigh* I’m going to keep looking around and see what I’m willing to change or give up. Or I may bite the bullet and spend the money when income tax comes through. I haven’t decided yet. I need to do more research.

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

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[NanaKat]

One more and I'll stop. View attachment 1653515

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

Yours is cheap compared to one that I did. *sigh* I’m going to keep looking around and see what I’m willing to change or give up. Or I may bite the bullet and spend the money when income tax comes through. I haven’t decided yet. I need to do more research.

I’ve been thinking about your situation, and I think even if you only add 5 more girls to your flock then it’ll help your situation. Space is the biggest issue that you are going to have, because as long as the boys have enough room away from each other, freeranging, it’ll lower the frequency of fighting.

Negan and his son would leave each other alone, but when Negan tried to mate any of the hens his son would go ballistic on him, which is when he picked up this stupid habit of his has now of rushing the hens.

So seeing as they are smaller in size and not as quick to cover the ground to get at each other I think just a few more hens will help in the effort to solve your problem with the boys.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Yours is cheap compared to one that I did. *sigh* I’m going to keep looking around and see what I’m willing to change or give up. Or I may bite the bullet and spend the money when income tax comes through. I haven’t decided yet. I need to do more research.

Oh wow! Lol yeah, idk. I feel like maybe I should reduce the number because 17 chickens is a lot to feed and I’d have to make a new coop but at the same time, I want to try all those breeds and I need new egg layers lol thinking maybe I should take Welsummer or Delaware out but I’ve read those are good breeds plus I like the Wellie’s speckled eggs. Then I thought maybe I should take NHR or Buckeyes out as they’re kind of boring colors and potentially mean but then they’re also supposed to be great chickens and no one around here breeds Buckeyes so I can’t get them locally. So idk. It’s like every breed I’m like well maybe I should take that one out, I don’t really need THAT one, but then I find a reason why I should keep that one LOL then I think maybe I should just get none of them and just get a bunch of ISA browns and leghorns instead for eggs lmao

 

[The Farmers' Daughter]

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Omg! That is incredible that they've bonded like that! Such a sweet picture!

 

[ShrekDawg]

My dad surprisingly seems onboard with more chickens but he did NOT seem onboard when I mentioned I wanted to add 10 more even though I said I’d build the new coop. But he does agree we need more eggs. So I’m thinking I need to narrow it down to like 3 or 4 so they can fit in the current coop or I could just order all of them and not tell him. but thinking I need to NARROW IT DOWN lol