Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[Yard full o' rocks]

Roebuck's LF Buff Rock eggs arrived in good shape on 5/30 at 10am ...they shipped on the 29th from VA...pretty good turnaround time I'd say...air cells appear intact and 'tight'....and nice cool temp...first time I've had hatching eggs via express mail in a horizon box...sure seems like this may prove to be another and perhaps 'safer' way to get hatching eggs from coast to coast...they are finishing their resting period in the incubator room...and then into incubator they go today.

May 'the Force" be with them. LOL

Best of luck with those....NO ONE (and I mean NO ONE) does Buff Rocks like Tom....you'll be amazed!

Do I see writing on top of the eggs? If so, he may have marked them by Pen #...if so, be sure to hatch them so you can mark them accordingly as I'm sure he has the parentage noted somewhere

GOOD LUCK!!

 

[gjensen]

Roebuck's LF Buff Rock eggs arrived in good shape on 5/30 at 10am ...they shipped on the 29th from VA...pretty good turnaround time I'd say...air cells appear intact and 'tight'....and nice cool temp...first time I've had hatching eggs via express mail in a horizon box...sure seems like this may prove to be another and perhaps 'safer' way to get hatching eggs from coast to coast...they are finishing their resting period in the incubator room...and then into incubator they go today.

May 'the Force" be with them. LOL

Hey, good luck with those. I will be interested in seeing how this goes. I have always been fascinated by this variety. If I could (I can't), add something else, they would be it. I think.

 

[fowlman01]

Best of luck with those....NO ONE (and I mean NO ONE) does Buff Rocks like Tom....you'll be amazed!

Do I see writing on top of the eggs? If so, he may have marked them by Pen #...if so, be sure to hatch them so you can mark them accordingly as I'm sure he has the parentage noted somewhere

GOOD LUCK!!

I learned something from one of these BYC ladies. She marks the chicks with felt pens on the shank. Right side or left side or a combination and then with colors, she has all kinds of info. Right where the feathers meet the shank and she colors the feathers too. Then she toe punches them when they are a little older so that the hole does not close. Maybe everyone does it that way.....lol.....but it was new to me.

Walt

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

I learned something from one of these BYC ladies. She marks the chicks with felt pens on the shank. Right side or left side or a combination and then with colors, she has all kinds of info. Right where the feathers meet the shank and she colors the feathers too. Then she toe punches them when they are a little older so that the hole does not close. Maybe everyone does it that way.....lol.....but it was new to me.

Walt

Walt.....don't know if its true or not, but I was advised by a breeder to NEVER toe punch after a day or two old as the bleeding might be too profuse and difficult to stop (IDK)

I toe punch when they go into the brooder and EVERYBODY gets a "foot tattoo" at that point

 

[fowlman01]

Walt.....don't know if its true or not, but I was advised by a breeder to NEVER toe punch after a day or two old as the bleeding might be too profuse and difficult to stop (IDK)

I toe punch when they go into the brooder and EVERYBODY gets a "foot tattoo" at that point

I have never had any problem with doing it later. I have some tiny birds that I would have to take out the whole web at hatch. I do it and so does a lot of others, but it cuts down my available positions. In addition ...even though it is not a cut...I don't want a judge to find an excuse to knock the bird down. Maybe that person had a bad experience, but I haven't. If they can't live through a toe punch, they aren't going to do well here. no sissy birds on my place.....except for my Silkies.

Walt

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Yeah, I agree with Walt. If a toe-punch kills them, it's saving you the cull that's going to happen in a day anyways. I've toed punched thousands of chicks--not one death. If someone's actually lost a chick, I wonder if they didn't toe-punch the toe as opposed to the web.

Right from day 1. Often, upon inspection, the little piece of skin might be hanging on a tad underneath. This is what causes the hole to "close". If it scabs back in, it has the chance of healing, but a hole without skin tag will not close. The skin tag just quick pinches right off, and they're none the wiser. I have a piece of paper towel on which is a little pile of blood stop powder. I punch the toe, pinch the tag, and then dip the foot in the powder. This isn't out of concern for the chick, because, of itself, the wound is outstandingly minor and will heal readily. I do it to stop the sight of red from goading on other chicks from tasting their neighbors.

It's also that we have too many chicks from too many pairings. I can't not put them together. I don't brood by pairing but by week. All of the chicks have to go together. From the incubator, I sort them into boxes according to breeding, to-punch, and then bring the group to the brooding facility.

At two weeks I go over the whole hatch, inspect, cull again, if necessary, and wing-band. I never mess with leg bands. They fall off to easily, and I really don't have the time to replace them as they grow, I'd have to do it every week. Our hatching spans over a period of fourteen weeks, that would be nuts.

My buddy, Brian, wing-bands day 1 and nothing but, but I'm worried about piercing muscle. If it happens, when they're older they can't open their wing fully. By two weeks, I find that they are easy to wing band.

 

[cluck-cluck]

Roebuck's LF Buff Rock eggs arrived in good shape on 5/30 at 10am ...they shipped on the 29th from VA...pretty good turnaround time I'd say...air cells appear intact and 'tight'....and nice cool temp...first time I've had hatching eggs via express mail in a horizon box...sure seems like this may prove to be another and perhaps 'safer' way to get hatching eggs from coast to coast...they are finishing their resting period in the incubator room...and then into incubator they go today.

May 'the Force" be with them. LOL

I just want to wish you TONS of luck and a perfect hatch! I feel almost as excited as I would if they were mine to see how they turn out!

 

[Yellow House Farm]

PS: All of this talk about Jeremy's Barreds makes me want to try some......

I can see husband now:

....

......

Therefore....self-control....self-control.....self-control...... I can resist any crapola chicken you throw at me, but really good birds are hard to resist.......

I'm glad to hear of the Buff Rocks. When I was tout petit my father had an excellent pen of Buff Rocks. They were huge; I mean huge. The cock was amazing.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
"Near" is relative. The closest store with a butcher shop is a 25 mile round trip. I shop there maybe once or twice a month. And I live in a low-rent area where scraps and fat tend to be prime time dinner fixins, so there's probably lots of competition. But it's clear I have to change something. Might as well start by changing my shopping habits and getting friendly with butchers in the area. Thanks for the tip. And the processing technique.

Now to figure out what to do with 50 lbs of fish meal with 600 ppm ethoxyquin. Can't take it back - I opened the bag before reading the label. Duh. Don't really want to put it on the garden. I had to laugh when I read the FDA info on ethoxyquin. They assumed it would only be used indoors, primarily as a wash for pears and stuff, and didn't even look at possible effects of outdoor applications when they approved it because they assumed those outdoor applications just wouldn't occur. But it does get outside. Lots of gardeners use fish meal. And most fish meal seems to come with ethoxyquin. Handling instructions for the stuff say don't breathe it, don't get it on your skin, but they allow it to go on your food. Or in your animal's food. Weird world we live in.

 

[fowlman01]

PS: All of this talk about Jeremy's Barreds makes me want to try some......

I can see husband now:

....

......

Therefore....self-control....self-control.....self-control...... I can resist any crapola chicken you throw at me, but really good birds are hard to resist.......

I'm glad to hear of the Buff Rocks. When I was tout petit my father had an excellent pen of Buff Rocks. They were huge; I mean huge. The cock was amazing.

If you had more breeds you could say "we have had these for years".

w.