4th Annual BYC NYD Hatch-a-long

[mstricer]

Whew. After bagging up some SLSa, I need a break from my soap room. That's some potent stuff! Even with a big, thick bath towel wrapped around my nose, I STILL caught some! Rough stuff, but surprisingly gentle on the skin and thankfully, not potent when mixed in with other stuff. Anyways, I'm doing anything I can to stay away from my incubator. Nobody has been making any noise in there, so I'm assuming that nobody will be hatching anytime soon. So far today, I've collected seven eggs from the ladies, which is pretty good. I have 24 hens and typically, I get about five eggs per day, on a good day. So, now, I'm waiting for egg flats from my brother so I don't have eggs just jumbled in the fridge! Another good thing, I'm hoping to send a few packages out today, one for a buyer and then some xmas presents for people who hopefully will enjoy them. I'm doing a "pay it forward", since there are three people who sent me some awesome stuff out of generosity. Hopefully I can make some other peoples' xmas a little brighter as well.

Today was probably not a good day to drink coffee, because now I'm buzzed from it!!!

Just think after the 21st we gain a minute a day, more eggs. My actually dropped off after I removed the light I had on so I could ship out my last two orders.

 

[Razadia]

If he's having low fertility AND he's mean, the stewpot sounds like a good idea. I can't tolerate mean chickens here. The first rooster we had (came with the laying flock) was NASTY. I had bruising all of the time, mostly on my thighs. I let it go until he trapped my youngest son, who ended with a scratch above his eye and a split on his lip. That was that rooster's last hour here. My boys now are perfect little angels. They have attacked a bear, and have even tried to protect me from the bear and keep me clear of the field where the bear came and went, but they have NEVER attacked any of us. They earned their right to stay til the end of their days (and not have those days cut short), and I now have a new respect for roos... We have six of them now, lol.

I managed to find a new job for him. We've been having problems with dogs killing our cats and my cousin has a bobcat trap that has a cage on the front for a live bird. Red gets to live in the cage until we've done away with the dogs.

How old is he?
If he is over two..he is ready for the pot in some breeds

He'll be two in the spring and he's a RIR. He's definitely a good sized bird.

Didn't you remove his spurs not to long ago? That can take them out of the mood for a while.

I hadn't thought of that. I never had that problem from my game roo so it never crossed my mind.

This time of the year can be a bad time for fertility in roosters that are just coming out of a molt. Did Red molt this fall? You might give him another chance in the spring if he did. Of course, if he is mean, you may not want to......
And she lives in Florida..

...all the "soil" I've seen in Florida is sandy and not dirt that turns to mud with a single drop of water like here....maybe that helps....they are beautiful!!

All my birds seem to molt at the end of summer during the dog days. They've been out of molt for a few months now.

You might check to see if he has mites. That will affect fertility. Now that its cooling down, it seems that the mite population will explode. I need to go through all my birds and check them too. Thanks for the reminder!

Ever since we had a really bad outbreak during the summer I've kept a close eye on them for mites. Thankfully they haven't come back.

 

[Bettacreek]

Mine are on artificial lighting. It's dim, so I leave it on 24/7. They go to bed at dusk and fall asleep, but at 3am, sometimes I hear the roosters making a racket in there, if the BF has the window open.

One of my turkey girls was being a complete IDIOT! I have never had problems with anybody going out into the road, except one cornish cross when I wasn't thinking. I ran to the other side of the road to grab some garbage (I like to keep our section of the road clean) and the cornish cross followed me right into the road. Thankfully, the person coming slammed on the breaks (I was waiting to cross back across the road, I hadn't jumped out in front of him or anything) and the people coming from the other direction stopped as well, so I could collect my crazy chicken and cross the road safely. ANYWAYS, I was up in my soap room and the kids came in, I heard the boys gobbling away, so told the boys to check out the window. Here, one of my hens was standing in the road! I ran down the stairs and straight out the door and scooped her up. Everyone, by now (if they haven't already figured it out) surely knows I'm nuts. Cold, running out there full speed, barefoot and in a t-shirt, no coat, to grab my baby girl. Ugh. Some days, I wonder what the heck the birds are thinking! Not only could she have gotten herself killed, but she's a good 30lb butterball and could've damaged a vehicle as well as possibly causing an accident if someone swerved. :/ Thankfully, we're moving soon and will be fencing the yard in for boys and birds.

 

[Brookhavens]

It's not always a specific mark, but an overall coloration. Females are darker with either no head spot, or a very tiny tightly centered one. Males are lighter - sometimes with silver fuzzy stripes down the back, and have a big ol mess of a blotch on their heads.

It has to do with the genetics of barring. Males inherit two copies of the white bar/cuckoo gene, and females only one copy. This causes more white on the males, less on the females, even at day one. The effect can be best viewed from above.

I knew this about the barring but BCM's are not barred.

 

[MarineCorpFarmr]

BYC Farms of Interest map. This is for all of byc, not just the nyd hatch along so spread these links around the site.

The sign up doc is HERE

The data is going to have to be entered manually so please be patient with Missy and I.

The map is located HERE

 

[Bettacreek]

Added mine, though some I'm not breeding just yet. I'm also going to be moving here soon, but still local. The zipcode might change though.

 

[Pele]

I knew this about the barring but BCM's are not barred.

d'oh! For some reason I thought she had cuckoos. Alright, nvm me I'll sit in the corner and mind my own business.

 

[MarineCorpFarmr]

Betta, no prob just update it when you move. Ill add a tab on there for new or update

 

[Bettacreek]

Betta, no prob just update it when you move. Ill add a tab on there for new or update

Awesome, thank you!

 

[MarineCorpFarmr]

Updated