California - Northern

[juststruttin]

Do both!

Seriously, it depends if you want more blue in the eggs or if you are happy with the color.

Check the chicken Gene thing and see if you need to breed the F2s to one of the other parents.

Let me know what you find out. Since I have these and will be hatching some CPs I may work on this cross too.

I love the egg color the way it is now, but not sure I want to build another breeding pen.

I am almost tempted to breed the X's instead of the purebred CL. I really do like the cross. The pullets I've grown out are really smart, friendly and great foragers. Ohhhhh I wish I had more pens. What to do??? I guess I have a couple of months to decide since my X roo is still so young. I think I will put my two girls in with my CL for the next couple of months, hatch some chicks and then decide.

 

[capayvalleychick]

How do I find out my exact lat and long? Id love accurate weather forcasts, we are in an odd area here and get hotter, colder and wetter then down 4 streets below. I feel like we are our own microclimate, so Id love that. I'm ready to bookmark in a hot minute!

Go to http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html to figure out your latitude and longitude.

I can't find where to enter it, the way that I did it before, but try this....

Go to http://www.weather.gov/ and enter your zip code in the box. There will be a satellite map on the right side of the page with a green box over your general area. Zoom in until you can see your house or wherever you want the forecast to be centered. Click on that, to reset the forecast center. Double check that the latitude & longitude is correct. Once you are getting the forecast for the correct area, bookmark it.

 

[chiqita]

Do both!

Seriously, it depends if you want more blue in the eggs or if you are happy with the color.

Check the chicken Gene thing and see if you need to breed the F2s to one of the other parents.

Let me know what you find out. Since I have these and will be hatching some CPs I may work on this cross too.

From what I understand of genetics, blue is blue. You wont get "more" blue by recrossing. You have already gotten rid of the white egg shell and have blue. The brown is a dye added to the shell so recrossing to the darker egg layer gets you darker brown eggs ( more dye) So they get darker olive with the crosses. Look at Zoo's Betty's egg and compare it to a marans egg. Its lighter since she is a cross. That is what you have done to the brown part of the egg. My f1 Olive eggs are very close to that brown over blue in f1. So I'm hoping the F2 will be a bit darker . if you like the olive you've got, breed em together.

At least that is my understanding of the genetics involved. I'm not an expert. I have just been reading about it this year since I had a active FCBM roo and 2 ee hens and no marans for about 4 months last year .

And ron, I have changed my mind, you should get this we need more geese and emus around here
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/grd/3517293173.html

Yesterday I went to pick up some silkies off CL, and it was a BYCer who id met at Cheryl's last gathering! She had gotten the eggs out of catdance silkies and hatched them and didn't want all of them. I got a stunning what looks to be blue partridge hen that looks like a a sunset. I named her firefly. I give up i guess I am going to have to divide silkie land in 2 and have partridge. Of course I'm getting partridge chicks from one of my black hens anyway ( I do not know how that is possible, but she was the only person with a vaulted scull laying, and little hairdoo is a partridge showgirl)

Hopefully hairdoo survives, the showgirls out of the tiny eggs are super fragile. I have a customer/friend with 2 broody silkies who was going to take the chicks for her girls and bring them back in some amount of weeks. But she hasn't emailed me back so I'm not sure if her girls are still broody.

 

[Miss Molly]

I hope they all hatch for you.  You'll fall in love with them.  They are like kittens (at least mine have been).  I protect mine from my big girls by sectioning off a silkie-only area.  Although I'm considering letting my always broody Buff Orpington hatch some of the silkie eggs this spring.  That should be interesting to see how they would integrate into the LF flock.  But I'm not positive I want to risk it.

It's too bad we couldn't have met up at my house yesterday.  It would have been nice to meet you.  I'm just 5 minutes from that Safeway.

I should have met Jeff at your house. I didn't know you live so close to that Safeway...

 

[chiqita]

Go to http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html to figure out your latitude and longitude.

I can't find where to enter it, the way that I did it before, but try this....

Go to http://www.weather.gov/ and enter your zip code in the box. There will be a satellite map on the right side of the page with a green box over your general area. Zoom in until you can see your house or wherever you want the forecast to be centered. Click on that, to reset the forecast center. Double check that the latitude & longitude is correct. Once you are getting the forecast for the correct area, bookmark it.

Oh ty! bookmarked. I just put in the address and they put in the lat and long, it was the same as what they said on the other site. That was fun!! I wonder if I can get the hourly streaming on my desktop....

 

[SilkiesForEver]

Got my first egg from my blue Silkie hen that won res. Featherleg at the fair!

*Happy dance, happy dance*

She was singin the egg song at 7:00am this morning!

Seemed like she enjoyed every note.

 

[waititout]

Non soy is the best way. If you can't find organic, look for natural that says non-gmo.

A little bit of soy is ok, but none of God's creatures should eat non fermented soy as their main protein source.

Next to worry about is GMO corn. Evil stuff and in almost everything we eat too.

What is it about the corn that is bad for feeding the chickens?

 

[Feathersprings]

Got my first egg from my blue Silkie hen that won res. Featherleg at the fair!

*Happy dance, happy dance*

She was singin the egg song at 7:00am this morning!

Seemed like she enjoyed every note.

Yay for you! I just got my first egg from my Blue Silkie girl last week. A will be so excited to see what she produces for me in the spring Cant wait for my girls to grow up!

 

[ronott1]

Quote: The Dickey has a rail option, so it will hatch Geese and Emus too!

Do you want me to hatch you some emus?

 

[SilkiesForEver]

Yay for you! I just got my first egg from my Blue Silkie girl last week. A will be so excited to see what she produces for me in the spring Cant wait for my girls to grow up!

Aww! She's so pretty!

This is my Silkie Ember. BTW: I think she got a little of the Sizzle gene.