Bay Area BYCers!

[clio]

Jeremy,
Our condolences re: your friend's passing.

Melinda,
If you're just looking for fertile eggs, you could try to go to your farmers' market this weekend or perhaps to Trader Joe's for eggs?? If and when the eggs hatch, you can always bring the feathered out chcks to your feed store. I don't know if your cochin will accept day old chicks in a few weeks-sometimes it's successful, sometimes , it's not. In the meantime, can you put some golf balls or some wooden eggs under her?


My cochin Elye is still setting tightly on her three BCM eggs. The other pullets continue to "invade/crowd" her space to lay their eggs! My broody delaware Omega somehow broke one of the four eggs that she is setting on .. guess she must have eaten a part of it also. The BCM eggs are due to hatch on May 31.


Renee,
How is Bridget doing with her eggs? Omega got off her nest today, and that's when I looked at the eggs and saw the broken one. Cleaned it out, added rice hulls to her nest box. A friend and I are going to Terra Firma Farm in Petaluma tomorrow; they carry the Cascade feed you have for your girls.

 

[dldolan]

Quote:
Thanks, Jeremy. I tried to use the http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html calculator, but am not very good at it, so still a bit befuddled. Would JOhn's white boy be dominant, or recessive? How would I know? When I put him in the calculator, and pop in a hen I have, mostly it says that I would just get blue or black chicks if I choose white dominant...

I am very sorry to hear of the loss of your friend, Jeremy. The death of a friend leaves a big hole. I know all of us in BYC are mostly online "friends", but we are all sad for you nevertheless.

 

[sewandgrow]

Jeremy,
Sorry for your loss................Our friends are like our personally picked family.

 

[PetRock]

Last week, we gave our broody BA three little hatchery chicks from the feed store. She had been sitting on a wooden egg for over 2 1/2 weeks and was determined to be a mama. We moved her nest into a dog kennel to give her some privacy from the other hens. I couldn't decide whether to give her eggs or chicks. I went back and forth for a couple days and didn't finally make up my mind until we saw the little Speckled Sussex chicks at Concord Feed. I thought about giving her some of Jeremy's BW eggs because we LOVE his birds! But she had already been sitting for so long that I just went with impulse and bought the chicks. I figured that if she didn't accept them, we could always go the egg route and raise the SS chicks in the brooder. We waited until about 2 hours after dark to slip them under her. I just assumed that the little one would scoot right under her since it was cold out there. Wrong! The baby stood up tall and peeped. Precious turned to look and gave her a little peck! I almost grabbed the baby and gave up on the idea! It was a risk but I picked up one side of her big, fluffy, black bod and shoved the chick under her. She immediately began making mama clucking noises and rearranging herself on top of the chick. YEAH! I grabbed the other two chicks and stuck them under her with the first one. She seemed to be very happy and pancaked down on them. I locked the kennel door and left them. It was a long night with little sleep and we were out there at dawn to check on them. All were doing fine and Precious was one happy mama. She hasn't pecked on them since and they were ornery kids at the beginning! They kept pecking her eyes and grabbing onto her eye lids! She has the patience of a saint! It is the cutest thing to see her free range with her babies. We are loving the experience and so is she! The other hens aren't so thrilled when she jumps on their backs if they get too close.

It is the best program on chicken TV right now!

 

[Anna_B_Happy]

What a cute family....

 

[PetRock]

Quote:
Thank you! It would have been cute to see her with some of Jeremy's little yellow chicks! Maybe the next time she goes broody!

 

[MarinMama]

Quote:
Jeremy, I am sorry to hear about your friend.

Hi Bay Area BYCers...well I have a bunch of bantam chickens and cannot keep the roos. I was going to place an auction as i got a better sense of which ones were the roos but there are 1 or 2 that I am almost certain are roos.

Does anyone want to check out this thread to see what Bantam Easter Eggers are roos. I think a couple are going to be real lookers so I would rather have them go to a good home if someone wants them than the alternative.

The thread is here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=508926

3 week old Bantam Easter Eggers. Is this a lavender? What would you consider the tan/beige one? That is def. a roo...both are super sweet.

This is what they looked like at 3 days old.

Here are the other Easter Eggers at 3 weeks old and 3 days old. The one in the middle with the pretty feathers is also most likely a roo.

I also have white silkies and bantam buff orpington roos looking for a good home.

 

[jeremy]

MarinMama, thank you for your kind words and everyone else as well. It would be an understatement for me to say I'm glad that this week is over. It's been a difficult few days.

The chick in question does not look Lavender to me, but Blue. I've kept both colors, Lav is much paler and "silvery" in color.

I had a few EEs before my pure Ameraucanas and I've always liked them, their feather color variety and the surprise that comes with each new egg is really fun.

 

[jeremy]

Oh, BTW, are your Silkies cockerels too?

Or straight run?

 

[wolftracks]

Hey Deb

I have problems lately with my camera phone and I can't get my pics off of it. I'll post some when I do. Trouble in actually in the house. I just bought two new dog crates and he's sitting here looking at me like he's not too sure about this place. But he's doing fine, and I looked at the others and I guess they are about the same size. I have lots that are younger and some older out there and these guys kind of stick to themselves, so it was hard to compare.

I also have pics I wanted to put on here of Ziggy and the girls. I gotta say, he's strange. I was looking for eggs and thought he was to the side with one of the other hens. Someone was in the box and when I looked closer, he was in there dusting! I looked at the girls and they looked at me like "well we'd give ya a little something, but mmmmmmmmmmm." Kind of gave me a side tilt to the head and walked over for a treat.

I have 12 out of 15 hatched and 15 more due tomorrow and wednesday (just a couple), so I guess I need to put an ad on CL.

Otherwise, we're having a bad time here right now. I hate that my daughter has to go through this, but at least she knows that I understand and we're helping eachother through some things. Horrible thing to bond over though.