California - Northern

[zooweemama]

Hi Amy Beth!

Great job of Multi Quoting!

Those are pea combs and is closely related to the blue egg shell gene. The eggs will most likely be blue to green. How exciting!

Pea comb does not work for Cream Legbars though.

Ron

Do you recall if the EEs you sold me had pea combs or not?

 

[Wishing4Wings]

YEAH! The evacuations have been lifted for McCumber, Ron's mom town as well as lots of other communities in that area! Here's some pictures of my son-in-law and other firefighters that helped make that possible.
My SIL is closest to the camera, they laid 7000 feet of line and it held through the night. This was taken at 4am yesterday morning.
My SIL watching the line......I so would NOT want this job!
This is my SIL's crew from Chico. He's second from the left. He's a city of Chico firefighter, so doesn't usually get to fight fires like this.

And this is Strike Team 3801A

....and this is more like how I'm used to seeing him. My daughter said it's this face she misses the most. He's been gone 12 days. In that time her 4 year old got strep throat, she got strep throat and then the 18 month old grandson got it! He has also missed his daughters first day of school. There is a true firefighters family and the other wives and gathered around her, bringing her things she needed (including vodka

).

Thought you all would enjoy putting faces to the people who are protecting us!

Thank you for sharing the photos!!! Really shows what an enormous task they have. Whatever would we do without people like these guys?!

 

[lawatt]

Sorry, that was in the post that disappeared. 5-7 days at full strength, 1/2 tsp per gallon. The mixed corid is good for three days, so six days is what I usually use as a full course. After that, you can give them half strength for another 5 - 7 days, but I think the medicated feed will take care of the second lower course. I have been giving them the first full strength course and then the medicated feed for 2 more weeks. Then I watch them but have not had to give them more. They build up resistance and do fine after that.

Corid is amazing at saving them from Cocci!

Ron

thanks thanks thanks!! i'm not sure that they actually HAVE cocci, but figure, better safe than sorry, esp. since there doesn't seem to be a downside to giving them Corid as a prophylactic measure if they DON'T have it. i'll mix more of it up this afternoon!
best,
laura

 

[lawatt]

Thank you for sharing the photos!!! Really shows what an enormous task they have. Whatever would we do without people like these guys?!

x2 -- fantastic photos!

 

[zooweemama]

Gosh I need to read more about breeding. I will have 3 possible projects come Spring.

1. I want to take my BC Marans rooster and cross him with some pea combed EEs for some Olive Eggers. (but what to do with the cockerels...eat them? won't they be little?)
2. If my BC Marans prove to be hardy through the Winter- I might let my hens sit on some of their eggs for hatching. I won't be able to keep all the chicks if I do that - so I think I would sell of extras right? Despite 1 run in with heat- the rest of them have managed to get through 115 degrees. They dragged...but they lived. LOL
3. I def want to let a BO hen sit on some eggs- I would like to have a few new hens every year. Sell off the extras.

I still want to try the Basques. Maybe 2 started pullets from one of you who have them and willing to sell me started pullets in the Spring or Summer 2013.

And just for fun...shoot me now because I swore I would NOT do this...I would like to get my hands on some Chocolate ENGLISH Orpingtons. *passes out* I am in love with them.

Do you guys think I will have a hard time selling off the extra chicks? I may want to keep about 10 total from next Spring's hatch.

What I do not want to happen is to get overrun with chickens. I think I'd max out at 35-40 (eventually hitting that number over a year or 2. all layers and 3 roosters tops. And needing a second coop of course.) tops assuming I had an easy time selling off my eating eggs to help off set the food costs. IN order to do that I would have to re-home/freezer camp seasoned layers/extra roosters regularly.

Craigslist all the extra chicks? Is that what you all do? I don't want to be a business- but I do want to responsibly manage my extras without literally giving away the farm. My chickens are of good stock so selling my extra chicks for a buck like some people do on CL is so not gonna happen.

Standard fresh chicken egg prices are $3/dozen right?

 

[zooweemama]

How long is the withdrawal period for eggs with medicated chick starter? Today is the last day for the chickens to be on it and my big Orps could lay any day now. I will die if I have to wait a month to eat their eggs.

 

[ronott1]

Quote: Yes, they were pea combs. The Marans have a blade or straight comb, so you can see the difference in them. Pea combs look like peas in a pod.

Sometimes you can get a mix too.

ron

 

[ronott1]

Quote: EEs and Marans should be easy to sell.

The national average for free range eggs is 5 to $8.00. Sell them for $4 or $5 dollars per dozen since Redding is a depressed area.

Ron

 

[chiqita]

Zoo, I sell 70% of my chicks off of CL. We sell quail, marans, silkies, Oe's and whatever crazy eggs I hatch from swaps ( pheasants, buttons, hopefully some of those keets will hatch) and non silked silkies and barnyard mixes.

I sell them from 8-20 bucks.

HOWEVER I'm in silicone valley, and sell designer chickens. We actually sell more quail then anything else, mostly because I can sex them at 8 weeks or so. If I could sell sexed chicks Id sell 5x more ( sending hearts to on! Lol) . And, quail are apartment birds you can have on your porch, and when you think screw this! I'm done with quail! I'm going on vacation! You can have dinner.

I'd bet the Marans will be easy to sell ( especially if you offer to take back the boys) but Marans eggs are not an easy hatch. I have 2 hens that are about 100% hatch, and the rest are spotty. The chicks make it to lock down and either don't come out, pip in the wrong place, or don't absorb the yolk. I don't wonder if FCBM's in the US are a wee bit inbread. None of my roosters and hens are related, or even bread within the same 1/2 of the country, so it's not my stock being close. I only send out 3 types of eggs for swaps now because the bigger ones i worry about hatching.

We ended up with about 20 extra oe cockerels and we are going to eat em at 20 weeks. The biggest issue I have is they start to crow, and we can hear them even if the neighbors cant. They may not make it to 20 weeks. They however have been crowing MUCH later then the full breed Marans, they seem to start early. The oe's were a bust for selling, starter people didn't like the idea of a crossed bird. I sold them to people buying other chicks from me or real chicken people.

IMO, you may have trouble selling your orphies unless people are already coming for Marans and want variety. You are competing with sexed hatchery birds, and people will do a lot to not get roos. I did get some orphingtons in a swap and sold out, but no one wanted just them, they got them as a pretty extra ( they were a weird gold color, almost a glowing orange, go figure) .

You are in a more rural area, and people might be looking for different things. I now offer to take roosters back if people get stuck ( don't ask me what I'm going to do with silkie roos,!) Ive actually re homed about 10 roos so far but I'm guessing we are towards the end of the line and we will be eating a lot of returned roos. Ill keep trying for the ones that are special pets, but only so many homes around. I'm also a fairly good sales person and have the patience to deal with 1/2 the people who email not showing back up. I have only had one creepy guy show up who I was a bit worried about, and he was more of an eco nut then anything else. glad he didn't come back to pick up birds. He was going to just abandon the boys around his house, they would have just starved to death and I didn't want to tell him to piss off at my house alone.

I pay for my feed and egg costs, and make money, but its a part time job. But staging relies on people putting houses up for sale, and that is slow, so its a fun side and I get to hatch stuff.

 

[MonsterClucker]

Thank God for the fire fighters!