A Heritage of Perfection: Standard-bred Large Fowl

[brahmabreeder]

Had to do my first cull of the season today. Three of the buff brahmas chicks were falling way behind in size, so they got the hatchet. They were three weeks old and looked more like the younger chicks with more feathers. Their hatch mates looked so much bigger than they did. The hatchet I got for Christmas worked a lot better than the one I used before. Made it less traumatizing for me.

As of right now I only have seven light brahmas as compared to the 50ish buffs I have. Just put six eggs in the bator this morning after their three week break

. Hopefully next year I'll have some nice competitive lights and hopefully the buffs will at least be improved some. They still need to be widened up, but they're pretty close just not quite there. I'm going to cross the buffs back to the lights next year in hopes to get some more width on them.

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Could anyone on this thread advise me on what to do about duck-footed chicks?
Edited to say I found the answer in Mr. Blosl's original thread. Cull.

Angela

 

[Wisher1000]

Could anyone on this thread advise me on what to do about duck-footed chicks?
Edited to say I found the answer in Mr. Blosl's original thread. Cull.

Angela

Unfortunately, that is the only fix, sorry....

 

[fowlman01]

The thing I did stupid was I put plastic bag under the nest for something new then added the bedding to add support to the bedding not to fall or become loose but sadly don't do that cause eggs will cook with little air circulation..   Ummm, your from Cali, climate is always the same, east coast it's different..

I don't just talk to people in California to form my opinions about good or bad hatches. As an example I am in Milwaukee today and tomorrow I'll be in rural Chicago and so on for the next 7 days. I have a very good idea what people are doing with poultry in the US and Canada. The people I visited in Massachusetts and the surrounding area weren't having problems either. Btw: California has many climates and they are not the same. Take a look at California in a map of the USA. We have low desert, high desert, some places with snow most of the year and everything in between. It is like most of the east coast in size.

Walt

 

[3riverschick]

Hi Walt!

Well both hatches of 5 went fine. Have 5 outcross and 5 inbred light Sussex. All healthy and robust,
Hatched fast once they rested at large pip. One actually unzipped in 5 minutes from a large pip!
Only one egg didn't hatch, an inbred. Has a chick in it. Waiting a couple more days to see what happens.
I am so happy with these chicks. No observable DQ's. The outcross chicks are big!
The inbred just slightly smaller cookie cutter versions. Last season I had several chicks which had
a slightly darker hue of gold on the backs of their necks. No observable difference in their adult colors
from their plain gold siblings. This year, even in the inbred chicks, it has gone. Just plain proper
eWh gold coloring in all the chicks. That's a good thing, I guess.
Best Regards,
Karen in western PA

 

[fowlman01]

Great to hear that things are going well Karen.

W

 

[troyer]

Fowlman01; with 50 plus years of hatching and chicken raising experience, how soon in life did you get started?

 

[fowlman01]

My first experience with poultry was when I lived on a commercial poultry farm. I was about 9 years old then. I saw and handled many birds back then. I even saw twenty thousand chickens die of Exotic Newcastle Disease in less than 24 hours. I have never seen a die off like that since. I went out to pick up the dead or sick birds like I did every morning and found them all dead or dying. That is something I will never forget.
Walt

 

[troyer]

My first experience with poultry was when I lived on a commercial poultry farm. I was about 9 years old then. I saw and handled many birds back then. I even saw twenty thousand chickens die of Exotic Newcastle Disease in less than 24 hours. I have never seen a die off like that since. I went out to pick up the dead or sick birds like I did every morning and found them all dead or dying. That is something I will never forget.
Walt

Wow! That could have been a traumatic experience.

 

[3riverschick]

Walt, in your travels around the country have you seen any real high quality Marans being exhibited in any color?
Best,
Karen