Backyard Brahmas!!

[Huntress78]

June Pullet laid her first egg late yesterday

Congratulations!!

 

[Trooper Man]

there is a guy in TriCities, if I remember his name I will send you a pm

Thank you I got your p.m I have messaged that person you sent to me but I have had no responses. Thanks again for the help

 

[Vickis Girls]

ocap, mine were hatched in June also, and started laying a week ago. Was the first little egg really small? I know how excited you are. Me too!!!
Huntress, thanks for all the good sprouting info. All I could find was an enormous bag of corn, no oats or anything. Then I got back, saw your post, and realized I had a 20 pound bag of BOSS in the garage. That's funny, I had no idea what that stood for. I've been giving it unsprouted anyway, so will try that. Read somewhere that people sprout birdseed too.
Bird Lady,I think the snow is finally coming. Can't wait for this freezing fog to go away. I haven't seen the sun in a couple weeks.
TrooperMan, have you asked on the other Brahma thread? There are lots of breeders back east, and very few out here. Good luck.

 

[ocap]

ocap, mine were hatched in June also, and started laying a week ago. Was the first little egg really small? I know how excited you are. Me too!!!

size of egg was about what I would have hoped for from a pullet as big as she is. huge crack because of the temperatures but I would not have tried to hatch it anyway. now I know she (I will call her June) is as ready for spring as I am. Incubator is going to be turned on February 7th.

 

[Trooper Man]

Anyone going to have any brahma chicks for sell in the near future?

 

[Trooper Man]

I have tried contacting different people but have not had much luck reaching anyone. I know there have to be more brahma breeders out there who have extras to sell.

 

[Vickis Girls]

You'll probably have better luck in March. I think that's about when most breeders start hatching, but I've found that they only want to sell older pullets, so if it's just chicks you want, you might have to order hatching eggs. That's what I did, and every one turned out to be a cockerel(so beware). Have you gone to your state thread yet? I see you're all about the Hawks

but I thought you had said you were back east.

 

[Trooper Man]

You'll probably have better luck in March. I think that's about when most breeders start hatching, but I've found that they only want to sell older pullets, so if it's just chicks you want, you might have to order hatching eggs. That's what I did, and every one turned out to be a cockerel(so beware). Have you gone to your state thread yet? I see you're all about the Hawks

but I thought you had said you were back east.

Yeah I like the Hawks, I live in TN and I am hoping if I cannot find any on here then I will at the chicken show.

 

[3KillerBs]

My ladies have started laying. In the mixed flock I don't know which breed started first, but I've caught both of the dark brahmas in the nest box.

With my flock of 2 Dark Brahmas, two Delawares, and Australorp, and a Black Langshan I'm getting up to 5 eggs a day. Most of them normal medium or large size in colors from mid-brown to a beautiful, terra cotta pink. I have no idea who laid which.

There have been a few interesting oddities as they got started: eggs brown on one end and pinkish on the other, "pixelated" eggs mottled in terra cotta and white, a pointy egg, a half-size egg, and a jelly egg (laid from the perch overnight and frozen solid when discovered.

Marion, who should have been Rosemary, is exactly what I would have wanted in a rooster if I had intended to get one. His voice is pleasant and not as loud as the late, Red Boys. He crows for the pre-dawn, the actual dawn, and only occasionally throughout the rest of the day. He respects me (I make sure to make the tamest hen squat for me every time I am at the coop door). His 6 hens are not losing feathers on their backs and yet the very first dozen eggs were, as best I could tell, fertile (I am unlikely to hatch any unless we move to a more rural area).

It is a little disconcerting to look at how very LARGE they all are. It makes me wish that the run were twice as big and that I'd had the coop set up 2 feet off the ground instead of 18 inches.

 

[Summer98]

It could be something genetic, as the birds are from a hatchery and I'm sure they are related. My newer brahmas are looking good and have less black on the feathers. Maybe they are a different blood line than my others.