California - Northern

[HighNDryFarm]

Quote: I was so disappointed, very little participation. I posted pics of young birds I have had to try to get the thread moving but it only brought the negative comments I posted. Kinda guarantees no more novice posts after the comments I got. There were a few who were willing to give input and juststruttin posted a really nice chart on tail set degrees she made for different breeds. It's a tool worth going over there and downloading, but as a whole the topic was a flop. Which is really disappointing because it's a reflection of what I've found in trying to work with Polish.....not a lot out there. At least LF. Sarah breeds some amazing bantam

but I'd really like to work with LF. I was hoping to find some lines that would be worth making a new pen for!

 

[AlpineButterfly]

Let me check with her on the turkeys. I'm not sure if she is parting with them or not. I sure hope so because I would love to have one for Thanksgiving! We will be doing chickens the same day. What she is offering this time is $15 for the workshop and you can bring one of your own birds to process or $25 and you go home with one chicken processed & vacuum sealed. I would guess the November one would be the same but it might be a little bit more if it involves one of her turkeys. I'm headed out there this morning to decide which roos/cockerels are on death row for tomorrow. I'll check with her.

I would also be interested in attending a processing workshop, but do not have a turkey (or chicken) to process. I would be interested in buying one. Can you let me know what you find out for a November turkey processing workshop? Thanks.

 

[lawatt]

I was so disappointed, very little participation. I posted pics of young birds I have had to try to get the thread moving but it only brought the negative comments I posted. Kinda guarantees no more novice posts after the comments I got. There were a few who were willing to give input and juststruttin posted a really nice chart on tail set degrees she made for different breeds. It's a tool worth going over there and downloading, but as a whole the topic was a flop. Which is really disappointing because it's a reflection of what I've found in trying to work with Polish.....not a lot out there. At least LF. Sarah breeds some amazing bantam

but I'd really like to work with LF. I was hoping to find some lines that would be worth making a new pen for!

i felt the same way about the segment on campines -- i posted the best photos i could take of my two flighty (i.e. wont sit still to pose for the camera) pullets, but got zero commentary at all -- felt that i was expected to already know lots about the breed's qualities & what might be "wrong" with the birds, when i thought the whole point of the thread was for people to *learn*? very odd.

 

[ronott1]

i felt the same way about the segment on campines -- i posted the best photos i could take of my two flighty (i.e. wont sit still to pose for the camera) pullets, but got zero commentary at all -- felt that i was expected to already know lots about the breed's qualities & what might be "wrong" with the birds, when i thought the whole point of the thread was for people to *learn*? very odd.

It does sound like that is what is expected.

Campines a very nice looking chickens!

Houdans are next. I hope I learn a lot about them.

 

[Happy Chooks]

The foreign members that contributed to the welsummer section of the CSU thread were invited by other members. They had already been involved with us on breeding discussions on the WCNA.

But there didn't seem to be many top breeders posting in the Polish section. Do you see a lot of Polish at shows? That would be another great avenue for comparing what you should be looking for.

 

[capayvalleychick]

I was so disappointed, very little participation. I posted pics of young birds I have had to try to get the thread moving but it only brought the negative comments I posted.

Pam, I'm sorry about the way that you were treated on that thread. I have hung out on so many threads with the pros, trying to learn, that I think I can see a bit of both sides. No, there's no excuse for someone just being rude. Some of them definitely have better people skills than others, so express their frustration in different ways.

The following is simply my opinion on how I see it. I hope this doesn't upset you, Pam, because I don't mean it that way.

According to the thread description, "the faculty will judge all submissions", but that didn't seem to happen. It was probably too much to expect all the master breeders and judges to spend their time doing that on a regular basis and I can understand that, but it has been disappointing. I do feel like there is a clique of favorite breeders on these type threads and others- often newbies- usually get ignored. Laura, didn't Walt offer to come to your house to evaluate your Campines?
On the other hand, many times, the participants submitting photos did not follow the protocol, so that probably did not help either. It does say " When submitting a photo, please state the age of the bird. Sharing any other details about the birds growth, line, maturity rates, or weight is encouraged." I know Walt asked for photos to be a close up side view. He also said that he could only comment on what he could see in the picture and that he would not respond to the same question over and over. He suggested taking a video of the birds and submitting freeze framed shots.
I've always put chickens in a cage or kennel and held the shutter down to get a shot good enough for evaluation.
I think that that if people did not take the time to take a photo as requested, the evaluators did not feel that it was worth the time to comment. Or, if the photo didn't show enough to evaluate, the couldn't comment on something they couldn't see.

Another point was that the thread description says that this is a thread for "advanced education". Any serious breeder should have a copy of the APA SOP and should have read the first section and be familiar with their breeds' description. It isn't a thread to teach people the standard for their breed. It's a thread to clarify and answer questions about those standards and how they apply to the birds you are breeding.

There are certain things that breeders can say that make it sound like they have not read the SOP. Pam, when you asked about squirrel tail, that made it sound like you do not have the SOP because that information is clearly available in the first section, with illustrations, and tail angles are listed in each breed description. Maybe you meant to ask if your bird's tail angle was far enough forward to be considered squirrel tail, but your question made it sound like you didn't know what squirrel tail was - which anyone who has read the SOP would know. I had a feeling that when you asked that question, the pros weren't going to take you seriously.

Yet another red flag for the master breeders are the use of certain words. If you use these words, they know that you are new and consider you not serious enough to spend time helping. I've had trouble with this myself. I always have to look up terms in the SOP Glossary in order to make sure that I use the correct terminology. Pam, you used one of the words they dislike the most: "Roo"! Other bad words are leakage and lockdown, plus others I can't think of right now. Kind of goofy, it's simply semantics but it makes a difference to them. They don't like referring to chickens as babies or other terms of endearment. Walt also hates any comparisons to dog etc. breeding, since poultry breeding is different.

I think that the long time breeders have spent so much time helping so many people over the years, and most of those newbies don't follow their advice or don't stick with it, so it was a waste of their time and effort. This has caused them to be burned out, hence more wary and judgmental of newbies and certain things like I've described may make them think a person wasn't serious enough to help.

Pam, you deserved to be treated better but because of the way you presented your info, you were perceived wrongly.
I also wanted to say I'm so sorry for your loss of Lady Gaga.

 

[chiqita]

Capa that is very interesting. I did not know that about roo. I use it because my phone doesn't spell check cockerel. I'm a big language matcher because i lived in so many places .

 

[ronott1]

Capa that is very interesting. I did not know that about roo. I use it because my phone doesn't spell check cockerel. I'm a big language matcher because i lived in so many places .

They do not like Rooster either. It is Cockbird or nothing, LOL.

They would really hate my Hatch a long Digests because I use all kinds of odd words to make the digest entertaining.

 

[Nikon]

Was gone for two days house-sitting. A family member collected the eggs from the nest box. Went to check the coop this morning and clean the poo (yeah sorry about the poo) Two out of three brown egg laying pullets are actually laying. The family member I think may be refrigerating my wooden egg (lol) because it's not in the nesting box. So, this is what I found when I opened the "human" door of the coop this morning. We were only gone Tuesday night through late last night (Friday). The shells look super thin and maybe were rubbery at one point. I've no idea how long they were in there. They are in the living space of the coop sort of under one of the roost poles. Everyone that's laying does so in the nest box. It didn't really look like anyone munched on them.

 

[ronott1]

Was gone for two days house-sitting. A family member collected the eggs from the nest box. Went to check the coop this morning and clean the poo (yeah sorry about the poo) Two out of three brown egg laying pullets are actually laying. The family member I think may be refrigerating my wooden egg (lol) because it's not in the nesting box. So, this is what I found when I opened the "human" door of the coop this morning. We were only gone Tuesday night through late last night (Friday). The shells look super thin and maybe were rubbery at one point. I've no idea how long they were in there. They are in the living space of the coop sort of under one of the roost poles. Everyone that's laying does so in the nest box. It didn't really look like anyone munched on them.

Are they new layers? New layers or Hens coming off of molt will lay rubber eggs. IF not, collect some of that fresh morning poo and send it in for a test to see if there are worms in the flock.