B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[Sydney Acres]

I got our first two eggs this weekend...one on friday and one on Sunday so I think it is just one girl that has matured! they are about 24 weeks old.

so thrilled!!! both eggs were about 40 grams. is that a normal size for a dorking egg?
they were perfectly shaped and I am going to pysanki-dye the one and keep for posterity.

Hi pysankigirl
The eggs start out tiny and get larger as the hens mature. I have 23 week old Dorkings, and some have been laying for 3 weeks, while others haven't started laying yet. They free-range over 10 acres, so I know I'm not finding all the eggs. I just found a nest at the base of a tree yesterday, protected by two large rocks in back and a tangle of blackberries in the front. The nest contained 24 eggs!! It wasn't a wide nest but it was fairly deep into the leaves, so the eggs were stacked up in four layers, with lots of leaves mixed in. Most of the eggs on the bottom were tiny, between 21 and 32 grams. Most of the eggs on the top layer were large to extra large, between 59 and 78 grams. It was quite an amazing find -- I can't believe that the racoons and opposums didn't find it first, and that none of the eggs were broken. I left one of the eggs in the nest, so hopefully the girls will continue to use it.
--April

 

[dorkings]

Ki4got,
Thanks for sharing the pics of your dorkings, it's always fun to see whats out there.
All the Best,
Lisa

 

[greenhorn]

I have two friends who use a fodder system. Both have ranches with multiple species of animals. One person said that it worked well, but her horses did not like the barley fodder. She stopped using it during the summer because it was so much work. She bought her system through Farmtek, it was very expensive. The second person recently started and made up her own fodder system. She's been writing about it in her blog. Search through here to find her experiences so far:
http://quartzridgeranch.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/our-fodder-room/
She loves to talk about it, so you could contact her.

Hey thanks cappavalleychick. I was checking out your friends site the other day and originally got the idea from FarmTek. The FarmTek Fodder System is way too expensive imo. I think we'll start out small and work our way up if we like the results. I think it will be an extra bit of work but i think the savings and benefits may be worth it. I can get feed grains right up town so thats not an issue at all.

I was looking at these grow tents on newegg and think they would be perfect. Not super expensive and think it could easily be set it up in my garage. This would allow us to control heat and humidity much better and they come in several sizes. May have to buy a vent fan and maybe set up some compact floro light bulbs (the twisty ones that save energy and last a long time) and fixtures and mount them up top. May also need to add a humidistat or maybe a humidifier with a humidistat and a temp control switch but that would be way cheaper than buying the system from FarmTek. Might need some kind of heater in there once it gets cold.

I have been watching a bunch of YouTube video's and i think the trick is to use staging racks and put the final stage up top to offer a little light. Many set ups don't even use any light but the ones that do seem to have greener fodder. One lady gets over 6 lbs of fodder per flat with 1 lb of seed. Think i'm going to start a couple trays in my mud room today and see how it turns out. It only takes a week from start to finish. Once I figure out how much my birds will consume we'll go from there. Probably should start a new thread in the correct category now. Thanks again cappa.

 

[greenhorn]

Hi pysankigirl
The eggs start out tiny and get larger as the hens mature. I have 23 week old Dorkings, and some have been laying for 3 weeks, while others haven't started laying yet. They free-range over 10 acres, so I know I'm not finding all the eggs. I just found a nest at the base of a tree yesterday, protected by two large rocks in back and a tangle of blackberries in the front. The nest contained 24 eggs!! It wasn't a wide nest but it was fairly deep into the leaves, so the eggs were stacked up in four layers, with lots of leaves mixed in. Most of the eggs on the bottom were tiny, between 21 and 32 grams. Most of the eggs on the top layer were large to extra large, between 59 and 78 grams. It was quite an amazing find -- I can't believe that the racoons and opposums didn't find it first, and that none of the eggs were broken. I left one of the eggs in the nest, so hopefully the girls will continue to use it.
--April

I kind of figured the eggs will slowly get bigger. Thanks!

 

[ki4got]

Quote: re: lighting, you'd be bette off using an aquarium/plant bulb. cfl are thw wrong portion of the spectrum for plants to utilize much.

please link your new thread? i'm just watching subscribed threads right now since both hands are now healing from carpal tunnel release - 2ns surgery was yesterday.

 

[greenhorn]

re: lighting, you'd be bette off using an aquarium/plant bulb. cfl are thw wrong portion of the spectrum for plants to utilize much.

please link your new thread? i'm just watching subscribed threads right now since both hands are now healing from carpal tunnel release - 2ns surgery was yesterday.

Hi ki4got, hope your hands get feeling better and I'll post a link once I get started.

Actually cfl's come in different spectrums and do work great for plants. 6500 kelvins is the best spectrum for non flowering plants. I have friends who actually use cfls to grow plants inside the house. CFL's are basically a twisted compact fluorescent and folks have been using fluorescent lighting to grow plants inside for many years. The old incandescent style light bulbs don't provide good spectrum but would still probably work for fodder because it actually needs no light. The new real skinny T-5 fluorescents are probably optimal for this use. They don't put out as much heat as a HID (metal halide or high pressure sodium) lamp would though. Of course that depends on wattage but watt for watt HID's burn hotter than T5's.

CFL's burn kind of cool and any extra heat will be welcome once winter sets in. When it gets too warm a fan plugged into a thermostat works to remove the heat from the grow tent. I have entertained the idea of using a 400 watt Metal Halide lamp inside the tent to keep it warm but they cost 25-30 bucks a month or more to run and that might suck up most of the savings. The initial cost isn't super cheap either.. Then again an electric heater would probably cost more to run. A 400 watt Metal Halide lamp might be a way to kind of kill 2 birds with one stone.

I enjoy indoor gardening and this seems right down my alley. Actually used to write a printed magazine column called "Ask The Gardner". I have the entire project figured out in my mind. Just have to finish up the new coop and finish insulating and sheeting my garage first lol. It is going to be a small investment but I'm thinking less than 500 dollars to set it up with automatic watering. Could easily be made for less depending on size and thriftiness.

There are some cool video's on YouTube about using CFL's for grow lamps and some interesting home made fodder systems also. I'll post those in my thread. Thanks for asking for the link, look forward to seeing you stop in.

 

[capayvalleychick]

There is already a thread on BYC about the fodder system:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/713334/growing-fodder-for-chickens

 

[LilyD]

Okay I was able to get some new pictures of my trio since it's October and they are looking amazing. (I threw out treats to keep them interested so they wouldn't worry so much about the camera.)

Trouble my rooster sitting on my deck.

Back shot

Side view



His tail looks a little pinched to me but he didn't want me right behind him so was hard to get a picture of that.

Other side with a good view of his feet.

Andromeda, the kids decided to go with names from Roman and Greek gods lol.

Athena front view Andromeda is right behind her sideways.

Front view of Andromeda

Side view of Athena

The other side

She loved having her picture taken hehe

Her tail is off to the side not sure why

Any thoughts would be great. Hopefully they will start laying soon and then we can see what kind of babies we get from the three put together. They look like little blocks and they seem to waddle more than walk but they come running when they see me coming my main problem with the girls is that they want to be in my lap which makes picture taking much harder hehe.

 

[greenhorn]

There is already a thread on BYC about the fodder system:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/713334/growing-fodder-for-chickens

Yes I was checking that thread out but I don't want to take over her thread.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Okay I was able to get some new pictures of my trio since it's October and they are looking amazing. (I threw out treats to keep them interested so they wouldn't worry so much about the camera.)

Her tail is off to the side not sure why

Any thoughts would be great. Hopefully they will start laying soon and then we can see what kind of babies we get from the three put together. They look like little blocks and they seem to waddle more than walk but they come running when they see me coming my main problem with the girls is that they want to be in my lap which makes picture taking much harder hehe.

Wow, they look great! Those are the best pics I've seen of Dorks from that breeder. If that hen always carries her tail like that, it's wry tail. Wry tail is a defect and you shouldn't breed birds with it, if you are breeding to Standard.