California - Northern

[Happy Chooks]

Quote: I've been eating them fresh. I have so much plum pulp in the freezer, that I don't need pluot pulp too. Pretty much anything you do with a plum, you can use a pluot for. You can make jam by cooking them down (skin and all), then putting it through a colander to get the pulp. Any plum crisp recipe will work for a pluot.

My current one that is ripe is a Dapple Dandy. My Flavor Supreme already ripened.

For those of you that are thinking of planting pluots, some of them need pollinators. Santa Rosa Plums are a good pollinator for pluots.

Quote: All of my fruit trees are fenced in because of deer. (except the fig since deer don't eat them) It comes in handy, because my welsummer run is my orchard. It works well - they fertilize the trees and eat any fruit that falls on the ground.

 

[chiqita]

When I cook down fruit to make jam in the slow cooker I take the first juice that is extracted for drinking. It cooks down faster and is still strong and tasty.

 

[debs_flock]

On rooster gonads:

There is a fight to see what animal gets them at our house.
The cats chase each other for them. The dog chases the cats for em. The chickens chase each other. The quail try and escape to get them.

Apparently they are tasty......

You have to have huavos to win the huavos!

At my house I finally convinced DH to try one, cooked along with his normal assortment of "innards". After the first bite, he declared "We are NOT throwing these away ever again!".

Me? The guts are all his, no thanks!

alright folks, i think i'm about to truly go off the deep end, chicken-wise -- I'm going to buy an incubator. i think i'm going to get the Rcom that Jason recommended -- it sounds the most hassle-free of any i've read about.

this was triggered by a call yesterday from the breeder i got my marans eggs from, she says the birchens might be crossed with a silver duckwing marans, and so wasn't sure what they'd look like when they hatch, and so wanted to refund my money and send me MORE pure birchen eggs in a month or two when she's feeling more confident about them.

I said, don't refund my money, just send more eggs once they're ready -- and of course i have no way of knowing whether anyone will be broody at that point. so i'm taking the plunge now, hoping it will arrive quickly enough so i can steal a few of the mutt eggs that Amelia #2 is sitting on right now & pop them in the machine as a trial run, then can put the chicks back under her if/when they hatch.

and i'm already thinking about a small addition onto my new pen... clearly i have caught this chicken bug thing.

Laura, it is all over for you now................................the beginning of the end.........................the slippery slope into chicken lady. Before you know it, you'll be like the rest of us.........................."I really need to cut back on my numbers, I don't know HOW I got HERE!"

It's that devil machine.............................the incubator!

I told DH I wasn't going to incubate another egg until I had no more chicks growing out........................with a few exceptions of course (the macaw egg that's due on Sun-Tues, a few misc. eggs I brought home from fair, including one from my own Priscilla and the dozen crele orp eggs that were sent to me last week). Of course, he keeps coming in the house with an egg in his hand................."I want you to set THIS egg".............always an egg out of some pen he particularly likes.

 

[lawatt]

Laura, it is all over for you now................................the beginning of the end.........................the slippery slope into chicken lady. Before you know it, you'll be like the rest of us.........................."I really need to cut back on my numbers, I don't know HOW I got HERE!"

It's that devil machine.............................the incubator!

I told DH I wasn't going to incubate another egg until I had no more chicks growing out........................with a few exceptions of course (the macaw egg that's due on Sun-Tues, a few misc. eggs I brought home from fair, including one from my own Priscilla and the dozen crele orp eggs that were sent to me last week). Of course, he keeps coming in the house with an egg in his hand................."I want you to set THIS egg".............always an egg out of some pen he particularly likes.

i know, i'm in serious trouble now! although my only saving grace is that i SEEM to be settling onto a smaller number of breeds that i'd like to focus on: silver campines, isbars, and the birchen and/or silver duckwing marans. i love the blue eggs of the CLs, but i'm not a fan of crests, so i don't think i'll stick with them... at least for now.

 

[debs_flock]

i love the blue eggs of the CLs, but i'm not a fan of crests, so i don't think i'll stick with them... at least for now.

I'd have a hard time getting rid of the CL. I LOVE the shade of blue of their eggs, their eggs are HUGE, you slap crele on anything and I LOVE it.................and the cockerel we ate last night was quite tasty, LOL

They don't have the big problematic crest of my polish, no one picks at them, just a nice English garden chicken!

We keep talking about which breeds to get rid of in order to cut back the numbers. There are so many "well I can't get rid of that one" or "I could just keep that one to hatch chicks for sale" that the numbers don't seem to move. My problem is to eat/freeze every spare cockerel and then take inventory. Today is a rousing game of chicken checkers (moving older juvenile birds around from their growout pens).

 

[tommysgirl]

At my house I finally convinced DH to try one, cooked along with his normal assortment of "innards". After the first bite, he declared "We are NOT throwing these away ever again!".

Me? The guts are all his, no thanks!

Laura, it is all over for you now................................the beginning of the end.........................the slippery slope into chicken lady. Before you know it, you'll be like the rest of us.........................."I really need to cut back on my numbers, I don't know HOW I got HERE!"

It's that devil machine.............................the incubator!

I told DH I wasn't going to incubate another egg until I had no more chicks growing out........................with a few exceptions of course (the macaw egg that's due on Sun-Tues, a few misc. eggs I brought home from fair, including one from my own Priscilla and the dozen crele orp eggs that were sent to me last week). Of course, he keeps coming in the house with an egg in his hand................."I want you to set THIS egg".............always an egg out of some pen he particularly likes.

hahahaha.... HE is the enabler!!!! and I love all the "exceptions"

just wanted to share a couple of pics of my guy Ozzie. The first one is taken in mid June when I first brought him and Harriet home from Kim's.


These next two were taken today:




That's Della a hatchery Dell behind him. Look at her leg color next to his...plus she got into the drip pan under the bbq and is all greasy dirty on her head so she is not looking her best. Ozzie's tail is really pretty. The black has the beetle sheen so it glows green. I am just so tickled that he is so good looking and has matured the way he has.


The little red girl who is barely visible is Norma Rae

 

[Papa Brooder]

Today is a rousing game of chicken checkers (moving older juvenile birds around from their growout pens).

That is always a fun task! I did that for a full day prior to leaving for my vacation. I always go back and forth in my head about 5 times before I actually move anything trying to plan out the best method of who goes where. But it feels so nice when they are finally settled in and those brooders are empty.

 

[lawatt]

I'd have a hard time getting rid of the CL. I LOVE the shade of blue of their eggs, their eggs are HUGE, you slap crele on anything and I LOVE it.................and the cockerel we ate last night was quite tasty, LOL

They don't have the big problematic crest of my polish, no one picks at them, just a nice English garden chicken!

We keep talking about which breeds to get rid of in order to cut back the numbers. There are so many "well I can't get rid of that one" or "I could just keep that one to hatch chicks for sale" that the numbers don't seem to move. My problem is to eat/freeze every spare cockerel and then take inventory. Today is a rousing game of chicken checkers (moving older juvenile birds around from their growout pens).

i actually love my uncrested CL Lucy, she's incredibly sweet -- have been thinking about keeping harold (the 12-week old cockerel) just to breed with her and keep the uncrested results -- i know it's not "right" for the breed, but oh well. but i would definitely need another pen if i were to keep FOUR breeds. although white, blue, green, and dark brown eggs would look nice together!

no chicken checkers here, but am getting some pea-sized gravel delivered for my little garden area -- the previous owner started the project, putting down black plastic for a gravel walkway around the center garden/patio -- but didn't finish one whole side, plus the gravel he got is drain rock, very sharp & painful to walk on:


so it's only taken me two years of living here, but i've FINALLY got plastic down on the remaining segment (in the back on the right in the photo) & having the nicer gravel delivered this morning -- can't wait to have it done!

Ozzie is very handsome!!

 

[tommysgirl]

Mottled Javas are on the decline and not close to SOP now. When a breed is in decline like that, they become less vigorous so they would likely have issues with flock health. The ones you get from a Hatchery will have been crossed with leghorns so I am talking about Breeder quality that have not been crossed.

The Mottled Javas from a hatchery will not look like it is supposed to. The Standard of Perfection keeps them looking good. Mixing with leghorns changes their shape and often their Utility along with color and patterns. It other words they will not really be Mottled Javas from a Hatchery.

Hmmm, So if I wanted to connect with the Garfield Farm Museum people or find MJs from their lines that would be the way to go right?? I am really not interested in going the hatchery route any more. Saw the sexing vdeos and was dismayed and they weren't PETAs or anything. One was a discovery channel thing and the other Dirty Jobs.

Looking at my hatchery Dels vs Ozzie and Harriet you can see that outcrossing must have happened. I have read that is true of many hatchery birds in general. I really like my hatchery girls but other than Sand Hill and other smaller operations that only do straight runs I don't think I will be getting any more that way.

 

[ronott1]

Hmmm, So if I wanted to connect with the Garfield Farm Museum people or find MJs from their lines that would be the way to go right?? I am really not interested in going the hatchery route any more. Saw the sexing vdeos and was dismayed and they weren't PETAs or anything. One was a discovery channel thing and the other Dirty Jobs.

Looking at my hatchery Dels vs Ozzie and Harriet you can see that outcrossing must have happened. I have read that is true of many hatchery birds in general. I really like my hatchery girls but other than Sand Hill and other smaller operations that only do straight runs I don't think I will be getting any more that way.

Yes, get them from the Small Hatcheries and Known good breeders.

On the Heritage thread there was a discussion about Straw Men(women) that buy a batch from a big hatchery and then sell them as their own.

Buyer be ware.....