California-Southern

[Sylvester017]

Plan your walk ways NOW, while you are still mobile enough. This is partially why I am doing the rebuild.

I want two breeds of chickens and a flock of guineas for Income producing. One partition will be reinforced for goats. but eventually I will build a separate goat pen inside the horse corral. just some judicious pipe corral panel placement and I can feed the horse and goats from the same gate. But poultry duties are time consuming and I need to rest between each pen. so having a shaded space to sit will be nice and just like in a kitchen I want a work triangle.

The goats will be company for the horse. So having them in the same space will be a plus. She will protect them from dogs as well.
She is a deadly shot with both front and rear hooves. And she doesnt suffer dogs trying to chase her. I have seen her take out a chunk of plywood the size of her hoof sending it about twenty feet across the driveway. She has size seven hooves.


If Katee wore shoes hers would be extra large. Compared to a horse who would wear a large. The extra large is about the size of the small dinner plate. I have seen all 2000 pounds of her go after a dog She can strike with both fronts.

I wish she had been able to protect the goats when the dog pack got them. But they were outside of her fence. so I will put up anti dog fence on the outside of Katees corral and build a goat house inside. Since I feed Alfalfa to the goats and Bermuda to the horse it makes sense to keep All the bales of hay stored in the same location. A bale of Bermuda weighs 110 pounds and a bale of alfalfa can weigh upwards to 135. I free feed both the horse and the goats. So that means putting a whole bale in the horse or goat feeders. By feeding that way No one gets anxious at a particular time of day.

No I dont lift a whole bale I slide it to the horse feeder and stand it on end and tip it over into her feeder. The goats feeder is flat to the ground so I would just open a gate and slide the bale in.

deb

Yep, during remodel of the outside yards the contractor pointed out even more accessways he could add to make life easier for me. Wish I could have more concrete but I don't want to cover water or gas lines with permanent sidewalks so we don't have to dig them out in case of future repairs on lines. I'm using paver stones over any gas or water lines. When we remodeled the yards this past two months it was so easy to just pull up the paver stones out of the way instead of breaking concrete and hauling it off. I waited 30 yrs to retirement to finally get things done around here and just hope I live long enough to get some use/enjoyment out of it before I'm gone

LOL

Love the big horses. Pop had one doing the horse plow when folks first bought the 25 acres in Vista. But promptly after WWII there were a lot of surplus Caterpillar chain-driven tractors on auction so there went that big beautiful animal! Funny, as a kid that tractor seemed a LOT bigger. Isn't that Buster Brown haircut a riot!


Smiles - Syl

 

[perchie.girl]

I had one of those doos in my case it was a pixy. when we lived in Roswell

i think weve hijacked this thread. My apologies to everyone else...

deb

 

[chickencrazy21]

Im hoping to try my hand at breeding. I have a chick roo cream legbar (had an adult i paid $80 for and she up and died suddenly guy bought her from was like sorry) anyways i need a couple female chicks of this breed. As well as lavandar buff orpingtons. I want a roo chick and at least two female chicks. Also interested in any polish but the other two are my main. I can buy other breeds as well but these are my two main and hatcheries are wanting me to order too many. Im located in west covina cali. Im fine paying shipping if need be or even driving around 2 to 4 hours away if need be. Can anyone recomend someone? Please message me if possible i have trouble keeping up with this thread.

 

[nickcole]

I'm looking for any duck breeders in Southern California. Does anyone have a list somewhere? I am especially looking for call ducks, but would be happy to know of any duck breeders who sell hatching eggs. Thanks for any help.

 

[Sylvester017]

I'm looking for any duck breeders in Southern California. Does anyone have a list somewhere? I am especially looking for call ducks, but would be happy to know of any duck breeders who sell hatching eggs. Thanks for any help.

I know Flip-Flop Ranch in the Lucerne Valley, CA preserves some endangered breeds like the Cotton Patch geese and Dorkings. Try them for references about ducks.

 

[sol2go]

Im hoping to try my hand at breeding. I have a chick roo cream legbar (had an adult i paid $80 for and she up and died suddenly guy bought her from was like sorry) anyways i need a couple female chicks of this breed. As well as lavandar buff orpingtons. I want a roo chick and at least two female chicks. Also interested in any polish but the other two are my main. I can buy other breeds as well but these are my two main and hatcheries are wanting me to order too many. Im located in west covina cali. Im fine paying shipping if need be or even driving around 2 to 4 hours away if need be. Can anyone recomend someone? Please message me if possible i have trouble keeping up with this thread.

The Cream Legbar club has a website which lists breeders in every state. You should find good resources there, as well as the proposed SOP and other reference material.

BYC also has more than one Cream Legbar thread with lots of people to connect with. Buy/sell/trade may also have what you are looking for.

What are your interests as a breeder?

 

[chickencrazy21]

For now i figured id start small lol thr cream legbar and the lavandar orpinton. I just love chickens. Ive had them a little over two years. Not sure if id sell them or what not. Does anyone have an incubator for beginers they recomend? Im used to hatching tortise eggs. A little water. Correct temp and leave them and see if they are fertile or not. Some how i dont think our older than dirt incubator would work...if i could find it.

 

[chickencrazy21]

Is it safe to like mix and match down the road and see what i create? Also what about breeding siblings. Thays a no no right. No inbreeding.

 

[QueenMisha]

For now i figured id start small lol thr cream legbar and the lavandar orpinton. I just love chickens. Ive had them a little over two years. Not sure if id sell them or what not. Does anyone have an incubator for beginers they recomend? Im used to hatching tortise eggs. A little water. Correct temp and leave them and see if they are fertile or not. Some how i dont think our older than dirt incubator would work...if i could find it.

Do yourself a favor and purchase a Brinsea. Yes, it's more expensive than those styrobators and whatnot, but when you purchase one of those, what you're saving in money now will be costing you in poor hatches and heartbreak later. I recommend the Mini (7 eggs) or Octagon 20 (22-24ish eggs) models, depending on how serious you are about breeding. If it's really your intention to become a serious breeder, get the Octagon. One of the keys to successful breeding is to hatch, hatch, hatch, and then cull*, cull, cull. The more birds you have to choose from the pickier you can be about your breeding stock, which means being able to maintain a higher level of quality in the end.

Is it safe to like mix and match down the road and see what i create? Also what about breeding siblings. Thays a no no right. No inbreeding.

You mean crossing of breeds? There's nothing wrong with mutt hatches "just for fun" but keep them away from your pure stock. Once outcrossed, it's very hard to get stock back to its pure and proper form. That's why outcrossing in a breeding program should really only be done with an important purpose (such as adding vigor to a weak line or creating a new color variety) and should also be left to those with at least several years experience breeding for specific traits. But if you just want to see what might happen if you crossed, say, a Hamburg with an Orpington? By all means, set up a "Let's see what will happen!" pen and go for it.

Inbreeding can be done - it's not anywhere near as bad in poultry as it is in species like dogs or humans. Sibling to sibling, offspring to parent, etc. are fine - for a generation or two. Actually, with less concentrated inbreeding, such as cousin x cousin or grandparent x grandchild pairings, it can be kept up for quite a while. Pretty much all modern breeds were created with at least some level of inbreeding - it's the best way to concentrate gene pools and therefore appearances. But when inbreeding, cull* even more heavily than you would a normal hatch - anything that appears weak or sickly, even if it has very good qualities in terms of type, should be removed from the breeding program immediately.

*In this context I use the word cull to refer to the removal of the animal from the breeding program, which can be done by butchering or selling/rehoming, whichever is reasonable and preferred by the breeder.

 

[gotro17]

Is it safe to like mix and match down the road and see what i create? Also what about breeding siblings. Thays a no no right. No inbreeding.

There are different types of breeding and spiral breeding is an acceptable practice for a couple generations... As a "breeder", however, you need to cull frequently, and discriminantly, to achieve a "good product". You would want to establish a solid foundation for your flock and only breed the best birds and/or the birds that are giving you what you want, getting rid of the rest. If you're doing it strictly for the hobby and fun of it, do whatever you want! Hope your city allows as many birds as your heart desires!

As for the incubator, some reptile bators can work...look yours up to see if it has the capacity to: 1) hold chicken eggs 2) maintain the proper heat and humidity and 3) reptile eggs don't need to be turned like bird eggs do.... You can look on Craigslist for an incubator. We have a Genesis 1588 that is super reliable and easy to use. We have the turner but don't always use it. I found the kit on eBay for $200. Good hatching eggs can be anywhere from $50-$90+/dozen, often with 'extras' thrown in, plus shipping. There are pages and threads here sol2go gave you where you can find what you're looking for. When we first got our incubator we 'tested' it out using eggs from trader joes and whole foods...we hatched ~70%, which I considered magnificent. We at the very least know we have excellent layers here, and the boys show their 'true colors' very early. At $4.99/dozen, you can't beat that!

I hope this helps!