Australorps breed Thread

Dan.
Same problem here with the frostbite. We are having a bad winter here in WV. 3 of my breeder cocks out of 5 have bad frostbite on their combs, and they are all from different pens, and different breed lines.

Stan,
Your babies have all grown up now and are doing fine. One breeding pen is still pure Tigercreek with "MOJO" and daughters. The other BA pen is "COAL" with my Duane Urch Line and TC. These I will call my Rattlesnake Ridge Line, and will all be pure black aussies. My other Breeding pen is a combination of the best that I picked from TC, DU, RR, and HF. This pen is starting to produce my Blue, Black,Splash Line of Australorps. I did not start my hatches until Jan so I am behind a little. We were sub zero for a few weeks on the MT. I have about 13 blacks and one blue right now with another two dozen in the incubator due to hatch next month that will be from the BBS pen that has HF blue cock and a splash HF cock in there.

I am real tired of plowing and shovelling snow on this MT.

Kurt

Kurt you are a mile ahead of me. It has been a skating rink here most of the winter and I had to put breeding pens together, which I did not. I waded 8" of mud today getting one put together. My legs are tired. One more to go but high winds and heavy rain are supposed to move in tonight. Next week they are talking low teens again! Not hoping for sweltering heat but I'd Love to see a Long Spring!

Dan
 



THIS MY MAX GROWING UP.
NOW 9 MONTHS OLD AND FINALLY BEGINNING TO TAKE CHARGE OF HIS LITTLE FLOCK. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?


BTW- those "bloomers" crack me up! He looks a bit scruffy because he had just came back in the greenhouse to take a dustbath after being out in the big yard for the first time since December. We finally had a daytime temp above the teens!!!
Also, the two little red terrors next to him have finally stopped pulling on his tail feathers so maybe he can finally start to look more like he should.


 
The time I have spent talking to Bob I have noticed the following. He is a Judge that judges all over the country so he should know what he is doing and obviously those requesting his services believe he does. He is working hard to continually improve his line and has a plan laid out.

  He also gives a lot of credit in the development of his BA's to Kirk Keene, but like I said is and has worked to improve them. I know there are No perfect chickens!

 Honestly the cross with your line has my utmost interest. The other cross is being made hoping to maintain what I have. Out of the 9 pullets I have 7 that are extremely close in every way. I have leg tagged them and still every month or so I change my mind about which are the best 3 or 4. Out of the 11 cockerels I had I still have 3 of them and would not be afraid to breed any of the 3. I am fairly sure I culled a couple that would have matured out very nice. The next couple months or so will be full of anticipation. It is likely to also have some feelings of accomplishment (hopefully) and some disappointment.

 I haven't talked to Bob since his accident. I will try to touch base with him soon. I hope he will recover quickly, but it did sound pretty severe.

Dan

I have had great luck with Bobs line. I've had the privelage of having him come to my house to look at birds, even though I'm in CA. He's judged two or three shows in the past 2 years, and knows a great deal with these birds.
I went a little crazy last year and hatched 80 birds, only a dozen or so were from another line. The rest were from my two Gilbert cockerels over four of my hens(distant Sherman line) an of those 80 I kept about 10 nice Pullets and 5 cockerels almost identical to eachother. These are all being mixed further into my line. I experienced a good blend between the two lines, despite the lack of relation between the two, but noticed almost 100 percent fertility(much higher than my other breeds).
I hope Bob will be ok. Sounds like both of his legs have broken bones, and I can't imagine how hard it will be to recover.
Zach
 
I have had great luck with Bobs line. I've had the privelage of having him come to my house to look at birds, even though I'm in CA. He's judged two or three shows in the past 2 years, and knows a great deal with these birds.
I went a little crazy last year and hatched 80 birds, only a dozen or so were from another line. The rest were from my two Gilbert cockerels over four of my hens(distant Sherman line) an of those 80 I kept about 10 nice Pullets and 5 cockerels almost identical to eachother. These are all being mixed further into my line. I experienced a good blend between the two lines, despite the lack of relation between the two, but noticed almost 100 percent fertility(much higher than my other breeds).
I hope Bob will be ok. Sounds like both of his legs have broken bones, and I can't imagine how hard it will be to recover.
Zach

Zach, That is good news to me that you have confidence in his line. I know you know your stuff. I really feel like I have a nice starting place, and that was all I wanted. Gonna try to put together another breeding pen tomorrow if it does not rain all day here. The one cockerel I have has some Sherman blood in him so it will be somewhat similar to your cross.

I definitely hope Bob does well on his recovery. I am sure he would appreciate everyone's prayers!

Dan
 
Wow. So much for sympathy! Sulking off to the "Mutt" thread now.

I STILL LOVE YOU MAX!!!


I guess I should have explained more. We cannot remove a post we made. We have to ask a moderator to do that for us. I do not recall any bad posts of yours--just figured you wanted to remove one.

A trick though is to go back to the post that you posted, click the edit button and the put one of the cute emoticons like above in there.

Sometime an OOps emoticon works?
 

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