Barnevelder breeders lets work together and improve the breed

[AyaBlodgett]

I have a broody hen right now. I put her in an isolation pen. No eggs, just water and food. It will take about 5 days to get her to stop wanting to set. Her voice tells me she is over the "mommy" mode.

 

[tls_ranch]

Here's a pic of my momma hen and some of chicks from the two sets of babies out free ranging. The little ones stay close, but the bigger ones run all over after grass hoppers. She's very proud of her babies.




Nothing like a good dirt bath on a hot day.


I was finally brave enough to butcher my first ever cockerel yesterday. I'm going to make soup out of him It went pretty well and I have at least 2 more cockerels to go. I think I'll skin the other two rather than plucking because it took forever to get the black pin feathers out. I guess it's much easier to get a white feathered bird to look perfect than a nearly black Barnevelder.

I also have 18 barnevelder eggs from Winnetka farms in the incubator. They were nice enough to hand deliver them on their way to a family reunion and all 18 are developing!!! The eggs are from pure Johan roos crossed with vB /KC hens that descended from eggs Winnetka got from my flock awhile ago. I've been wanting to get more Johan blood in my flock

Trisha

 

[pysankigirl]

look at all that nice clover for them to eat!

cute babies...good mom.

 

[pysankigirl]

what does vB and KC mean?

 

[BlueCamas]

I don't know if the Dutch Standard vs. American Standard is still up for debate, but I just wanted to show a picture of my Bantam cockerel. He has a completely black chest, not even a bit of brown lacing. He is paired with two really nice pullets and I can't wait to see what they produce. As soon as I can get another breeding pen up, I can hatch some of their eggs. Haha, if only I lived in Holland!

 

[tls_ranch]

what does vB and KC mean?

Sorry for the confusion. vB is the "nickname" for Christine(a) Ledford's line of Barnevelders. KC is the "nickname" for the line that Kelly Cratty reportedly once raised. I got both lines as hatching eggs from C. Ledford a few years ago.

Trisha

 

[tls_ranch]

look at all that nice clover for them to eat!

cute babies...good mom.

LOL, my neighbor came over and told me smartly that I needed to "weed n feed" my so called lawn to get rid of all the clover. I personally love it because it really helps out the soil as a "nitrogen fixer" and attracts tons of bees to pollinate my fruits and veggies. The chickens love it to At least twice per day, I grab up big bunches of it and give it to the penned birds as extra greens.

Trisha

 

[islandgal99]

I have been lurking here for a while and am enjoying the upbeat and positivity on this thread. I am very inspired by the blue projects here so much so that I am planning to start one, as we can not get blue Barnies up here in Canada. And I think I may have lucked out as I have found some triple laced - blue laced red Wyandottes to start with. They are stunning with great personalities, and I can't even find any photos of triple laced wyandottes on the web. I suspect the breeder didn't know what a gem she had! Atleast in my eyes.

I don't have many Barnies yet, but envision a field of them.

 

[AyaBlodgett]

Triple laced! Wow!

Can you post a picture??

 

[islandgal99]

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She's a black BLR Wyandotte, so I'm hoping she will give me some blue triple or double laced babies (bred of course to a blue or splash boy), and then take the blue hens and breed them to a Barnie roo. I have a bit (aka ALOT) more to learn about the genetics, but it seems if I can start with a double laced blue, that leaves legs, combs and type so maybe saving a little work in the project as getting the lacing appears to take a while. And although triple lacing is a fault, it's one I can sure live with!