Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

An update on the Splash babies, thus far the ones with darker wing feathers do appear to be male and those with lighter wing feathers appear to be female.

However, that said, it does appear to be a coincidence based on others' experiences with raising Splash chicks, or at least is very inconsistent and may as well be coincidental. Hopefully at least one of the pullets has nice type and no major defects so that I can add her back to the Blue pen and hatch more Splashes to test this further next year.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Gus passed away in the night. Devastated doesn't begin to cover it. He definitely had not been himself since the air quality alerts we were having last week from the Canada wildfire smoke drifting down here, and we've been having our pretty typical summer temperatures but with absolutely oppressive humidity, so that certainly didn't help matters. His only real symptom had been that he was a bit droopy, otherwise he was pretty normal, just panting a lot but that's understandable in that heat and humidity. I am not in a position where I can feasibly send him to be necropsied right now, but I have no reason to suspect anything beyond environmental factors. My big guy. I'm glad I was able to get many healthy chicks out of him this year at least.

Since Washburne seems to have gone broody and I'd already planned not to set any more eggs from that coop this year anyway, I think I may round up the last of the eggs from Gus's coop and let Wash sit on them to see if I can get just a few more Gus babies. Hopefully at least some of them are still fertilized despite that Gus didn't seem to be breeding for the past week or so. Goodness, this chickening stuff is tough sometimes.

 

[3KillerBs]

Gus passed away in the night. Devastated doesn't begin to cover it. He definitely had not been himself since the air quality alerts we were having last week from the Canada wildfire smoke drifting down here, and we've been having our pretty typical summer temperatures but with absolutely oppressive humidity, so that certainly didn't help matters. His only real symptom had been that he was a bit droopy, otherwise he was pretty normal, just panting a lot but that's understandable in that heat and humidity. I am not in a position where I can feasibly send him to be necropsied right now, but I have no reason to suspect anything beyond environmental factors. My big guy. I'm glad I was able to get many healthy chicks out of him this year at least.

Since Washburne seems to have gone broody and I'd already planned not to set any more eggs from that coop this year anyway, I think I may round up the last of the eggs from Gus's coop and let Wash sit on them to see if I can get just a few more Gus babies. Hopefully at least some of them are still fertilized despite that Gus didn't seem to be breeding for the past week or so. Goodness, this chickening stuff is tough sometimes.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I set 5 eggs from Gus's group under Washburne yesterday. Not sure how well she's covering them, so I'll have to keep an eye on things and pull any eggs that don't seem to be developing to make sure the others are covered well. Wash is a little bit bigger than Athena is, so that surprised me a bit. Athena didn't seem to have much trouble covering 5 eggs, though she did frequently push one out behind her when turning them... It's been warm enough here that hopefully any sticking out from under Wash won't be delayed by much.

And, of course, I've peeked at the corner coop eggs in the incubator. The oldest one, laid all the way back on June 17, doesn't seem to be developing so far, but the other 6 are, thankfully. I do see some concerning pooling in one that looks like it might be an early sign of a blood ring occurring, but I could still see an embryo with a heartbeat in it, so hopefully it keeps going just fine.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Living in a woods upon soil woven with the roots of many trees, digging is quite the challenge. Along with the mosquitoes kicked up by our recent rains, it's absolutely torturous to spend that much time out there working away. And with each burial, viable plots become harder and harder to find past those woven roots.

As a result, I've developed a tradition over the years where I instead send off the majority of my birds who pass via cremation, letting their ashes fly out over the woods they lived in all their lives. That's how I sent Gus off today, to become one with the woods and go back to the soil. Many tears were shed. Rest well, big guy.

Since I am not concerned about hatching many more chicks this year, rather than put my backup male, Zeke, in that pen now, most likely what I will do is just wait for an appropriate male out of my hatchlings to grow out for that pen. In the mean time, I believe I'll let Boba merge with the Blue girls and Wyatt for the rest of the year (after I've collected the eggs I want for this last hatch from them), and move Zinnia to another pen from within which I can set her up to more reliably find her food and water with her diminishing eyesight and tend to her a bit more easily. Beyond that, I'm sort of reformulating what I want my 2024 pens to look like now. I had unfortunately planned to swap Pete out next year for a male with better type (possibly even Zeke) and keep Gus around one more year despite that he would be 4 next year and 'over the hill' as they say, but plans will obviously have to change. At least Gus has saved me from the tough decision of what to do with him when it was time to swap him out for a younger male.

 

[3KillerBs]

Living in a woods upon soil woven with the roots of many trees, digging is quite the challenge. Along with the mosquitoes kicked up by our recent rains, it's absolutely torturous to spend that much time out there working away. And with each burial, viable plots become harder and harder to find past those woven roots.

As a result, I've developed a tradition over the years where I instead send off the majority of my birds who pass via cremation, letting their ashes fly out over the woods they lived in all their lives. That's how I sent Gus off today, to become one with the woods and go back to the soil. Many tears were shed. Rest well, big guy.

View attachment 3567907

Since I am not concerned about hatching many more chicks this year, rather than put my backup male, Zeke, in that pen now, most likely what I will do is just wait for an appropriate male out of my hatchlings to grow out for that pen. In the mean time, I believe I'll let Boba merge with the Blue girls and Wyatt for the rest of the year (after I've collected the eggs I want for this last hatch from them), and move Zinnia to another pen from within which I can set her up to more reliably find her food and water with her diminishing eyesight and tend to her a bit more easily. Beyond that, I'm sort of reformulating what I want my 2024 pens to look like now. I had unfortunately planned to swap Pete out next year for a male with better type (possibly even Zeke) and keep Gus around one more year despite that he would be 4 next year and 'over the hill' as they say, but plans will obviously have to change. At least Gus has saved me from the tough decision of what to do with him when it was time to swap him out for a younger male.

That's really lovely.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Last night I thought certainly it had been long enough, I'll just take a quick peek at the eggs under Washburne and see if there's any life. One by one, each candled clear and a feeling of dread clung tighter and tighter around my heart...

And then I realized it was Friday, and I'd only just set those eggs on Wednesday.

Now, that still doesn't mean anything will happen, of course, but I likely won't be able to judge on that for another day or two at least--so there is still some hope! I can't believe how slow this week has gone, though! I thought for sure we were approaching the day 7 mark on those eggs already.

 

[NanaK]

I laugh because I do stuff like that all the time.

 

[3KillerBs]

I can't believe how slow this week has gone, though!

Having the holiday extend the weekend has screwed me up completely.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Ahhh, that must have been what it was! Goodness, I don't know how I could have forgotten, people are still shooting fireworks off every night!


I noticed a bloody stool from one of Peanut Butter's babies last night and several this morning from the brooder boys that I've been taking outside, so I guess we're having an outbreak of coccidiosis here. First time in many years now. All the rain we've been having must have just been too much despite the natural immunity I try to give my chicks. Is it horrible of me to really miss the drought we were having most of last month? Anyway, I always try to keep amprolium on hand, so I've started that with PB's group, the brooder boys, and Amaretto's tinies just in case since they're a fence away from PB and her babies. All of them are still active and energetic despite the bloody stools, and Marka's babies and the older kiddos don't seem to be having any issues at all so far, so hopefully it stays that way.