CALIFORNIA The Whole State thread

[sewandgrow]

Never got to the brooder and the Sportsman is filling up fast. I had to help 2 of the Sussex out, but they seem to be doing fine. Man those suckers are MONSTERS! They're huge. Make my almost 2 week old bantams really look tiny. LOL

Denny let me know when the Easter hatch happened. Not sure yet who is and who isn't a roo from the black/lavender splits, but my chocolates are auto sexed this generation, so I have a couple for her. Thought the 2 that have hatched so far with this hatch were a pair, but nope.................PULLETS! YAY! LOL They sure did look black at first though. I need to hatch as many out as I can and grow them out. Next generation I'll get chocolate cockerels too, so I want to work hard on my sure thing, this generation.

Not seeing any of my Modern Games hatching or my Silkied AMs. The AMs usually hatch pretty well. Glad I have several cooking for the next hatch.

I had a problem with a coop, so I used one of the big tub brooders for my Moderns. Have to build them a new coop and soon, cause I could sure use that for the quail. I've had such terrible luck with my quail. I can sell them and they do fine for other people, but they just kind of lounge and go through times with no eggs and then a bunch. They usually hatch out really well, but this year I get anywhere from 1 to maybe 5 or 6. Went to feed a couple of days ago and one of the pens was open. Both little rooster were just laying around and all the hens were missing. I haven't seen or heard them anywhere and between Rascal and his feral family, I'm hoping cats didn't get them. Kind of hard to get eggs with no hens. I tend to hold onto them to long too. I lost one that I've had since the beginning of the quail thing. She hadn't laid an egg since last year, but she hung out with the rest of the free loaders. Hope I didn't upset her when I told her to start laying so I could eat her children. So I'm down to maybe 4 hens total and maybe 7 roos. I think I need to add some hens so I have eggs until the new ones are older. I saw some really big ones the other day. Might have to go pick up a few.

I haven't been able to contact Denny lately. Repeated e mails but nothing. I don't know what's up. I hope everything is okay. Maybe she is on a trial ride again.
I am no good with the genetics of all these birds that others are developing. It is easy when you just stick to pure bred each in their own pens..................LOL My OEs are my only cross & I am going to do something different & cross one of my OE pullets back to her father a Ameraucana & see what egg color that produces. Somewhere on here someone says that's how I will get that deeper teal but I don't understand that if the underlying OE egg is already blue????? We will see...............
Yes the Sussex do remind me of the Delawares. Strong bulldozers............I have some of @fortyfivefarm Delawares in this next upcoming hatch on Mother's Day. I have just started collecting eggs from the new Delaware rooster from Kim at @capayvalleychick . He is in with my Delaware girls now & they have been out of the layer pen for a month now. I will set up the new Genesis & transfer eggs from the Brinsea to it....just enough to make room for the 9 Bielefelders I got in the mail yesterday. They have been resting right side up in an egg carton.

 

[wolftracks]

I haven't been able to contact Denny lately. Repeated e mails but nothing. I don't know what's up. I hope everything is okay. Maybe she is on a trial ride again.
I am no good with the genetics of all these birds that others are developing. It is easy when you just stick to pure bred each in their own pens..................LOL My OEs are my only cross & I am going to do something different & cross one of my OE pullets back to her father a Ameraucana & see what egg color that produces. Somewhere on here someone says that's how I will get that deeper teal but I don't understand that if the underlying OE egg is already blue????? We will see...............
Yes the Sussex do remind me of the Delawares. Strong bulldozers............I have some of @fortyfivefarm Delawares in this next upcoming hatch on Mother's Day. I have just started collecting eggs from the new Delaware rooster from Kim at @capayvalleychick . He is in with my Delaware girls now & they have been out of the layer pen for a month now. I will set up the new Genesis & transfer eggs from the Brinsea to it....just enough to make room for the 9 Bielefelders I got in the mail yesterday. They have been resting right side up in an egg carton.

She posted to me on facebook on the chicken group. I had posted I had blacks from the black/lav pen and the chocolate split/ chocolate pen.I'm hoping she shows at your place so I can hand a couple of them over to her.
You told me about those teal eggs, so I stuck my OEs in with a blue AM roo. I'd like to see those eggs too. LOL

And. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Bielefelders. I've loved those since back when I had Barnies. Something better happen soon with all these places I've been hunting down. I need land and a barn! LOL

 

[chiqita]

Never got to the brooder and the Sportsman is filling up fast. I had to help 2 of the Sussex out, but they seem to be doing fine. Man those suckers are MONSTERS! They're huge. Make my almost 2 week old bantams really look tiny. LOL

Denny let me know when the Easter hatch happened. Not sure yet who is and who isn't a roo from the black/lavender splits, but my chocolates are auto sexed this generation, so I have a couple for her. Thought the 2 that have hatched so far with this hatch were a pair, but nope.................PULLETS! YAY! LOL They sure did look black at first though. I need to hatch as many out as I can and grow them out. Next generation I'll get chocolate cockerels too, so I want to work hard on my sure thing, this generation.

Not seeing any of my Modern Games hatching or my Silkied AMs. The AMs usually hatch pretty well. Glad I have several cooking for the next hatch.

I had a problem with a coop, so I used one of the big tub brooders for my Moderns. Have to build them a new coop and soon, cause I could sure use that for the quail. I've had such terrible luck with my quail. I can sell them and they do fine for other people, but they just kind of lounge and go through times with no eggs and then a bunch. They usually hatch out really well, but this year I get anywhere from 1 to maybe 5 or 6. Went to feed a couple of days ago and one of the pens was open. Both little rooster were just laying around and all the hens were missing. I haven't seen or heard them anywhere and between Rascal and his feral family, I'm hoping cats didn't get them. Kind of hard to get eggs with no hens. I tend to hold onto them to long too. I lost one that I've had since the beginning of the quail thing. She hadn't laid an egg since last year, but she hung out with the rest of the free loaders. Hope I didn't upset her when I told her to start laying so I could eat her children. So I'm down to maybe 4 hens total and maybe 7 roos. I think I need to add some hens so I have eggs until the new ones are older. I saw some really big ones the other day. Might have to go pick up a few.

Girl quail wont lay with that many boys around stressed girls jsut hide and shed feathers. Mine JUST started laying without lights, took FORever this year.

I haven't been able to contact Denny lately. Repeated e mails but nothing. I don't know what's up. I hope everything is okay. Maybe she is on a trial ride again.
I am no good with the genetics of all these birds that others are developing. It is easy when you just stick to pure bred each in their own pens..................LOL My OEs are my only cross & I am going to do something different & cross one of my OE pullets back to her father a Ameraucana & see what egg color that produces. Somewhere on here someone says that's how I will get that deeper teal but I don't understand that if the underlying OE egg is already blue????? We will see...............
Yes the Sussex do remind me of the Delawares. Strong bulldozers............I have some of @fortyfivefarm Delawares in this next upcoming hatch on Mother's Day. I have just started collecting eggs from the new Delaware rooster from Kim at @capayvalleychick . He is in with my Delaware girls now & they have been out of the layer pen for a month now. I will set up the new Genesis & transfer eggs from the Brinsea to it....just enough to make room for the 9 Bielefelders I got in the mail yesterday. They have been resting right side up in an egg carton.

That is how you get double blue gene layers that will lay olive eggs more then 50% of the time after f1. its a lighter color, but more reliable. all should lay blue/olive , and 75% should have ALL daughters that lay olive too.

 

[wolftracks]

They aren't all in the same pen. I have 6 pens for my quail. I had 2 roos in with 5 hens in the biggest one. The roos are buddying and the girls flew the coop. That is, unless I wasn't the one who left the door open. Wouldn't be the first time I've had birds stolen. No one else here bothers with the birds, so it would have to be all on me. I'm getting some new hens this weekend. At least that's the plan.

 

[sewandgrow]

They aren't all in the same pen. I have 6 pens for my quail. I had 2 roos in with 5 hens in the biggest one. The roos are buddying and the girls flew the coop. That is, unless I wasn't the one who left the door open. Wouldn't be the first time I've had birds stolen. No one else here bothers with the birds, so it would have to be all on me. I'm getting some new hens this weekend. At least that's the plan.

Well maybe the heavens will smile on you & you will have better luck this time.......LET'S HOPE SO;

 

[sewandgrow]

She posted to me on facebook on the chicken group. I had posted I had blacks from the black/lav pen and the chocolate split/ chocolate pen.I'm hoping she shows at your place so I can hand a couple of them over to her.
You told me about those teal eggs, so I stuck my OEs in with a blue AM roo. I'd like to see those eggs too. LOL

And. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Bielefelders. I've loved those since back when I had Barnies. Something better happen soon with all these places I've been hunting down. I need land and a barn! LOL

I hope you are successful in your hunt. We have been happy here being able to chase all of dreams & schemes. I wish everyone had that. I am grateful & always feel blessed.

 

[sewandgrow]

Shantih, I keep saying I am going to start a binder of things I need to remember like the tips on breeding & the lists of who has what breeds from whom etc........ I lose my focus after a certain amount of time on here & get up & go off to do other things & never get back to what I was "going" to do.................LOL. Just think of the book we could compile....LOL
I got hard food grade plastic boxes yesterday to make into dusting boxes for each pen. I bought a 50# bag of food grade DE to put in them. I tried this once before with big plastic bowls & wood ash from the wood burning stove but the dumb chickens were eating the ash & pooping black. All this mite/lice/worm talk on here lately made me want to try this. The cost of the DE in a 5# bag was ridiculous so I bought it this way from the feed mill instead. I got the containers at a recycled container yard here in Turlock for $2 a piece. I think they would make good next boxes too so I may get more but thought I would try 10 out first. They are about 1/2 the size of a fruit lug box. Hopefully I will get to that today...
Off to do more research on my worm hunt......LOL

 

[wolftracks]

I finally got chicks out last night. My backyard has no shade, so going out there in so much heat was just to much, unless I'm watering down animal spaces to keep them cooled off. There's finally a new light in the locker brooder and I ended up putting all of the chicks that just hatched in with the Easter hatch. I only had 2 LF chicks left and a few bantams, so for now, not to bad and there's so much space, there's no problem until the LF chicks start growing. That's maybe a week. LOL So I'll separate again for just bantams and just LF. I have EE chicks for sale, so several of those will hopefully be gone soon anyway. I have a couple of little black AM roos for Denny, so more bantams will go and I may be donating one of the pullets, but not sure yet. I lost 2 Jap chicks from Easter. So sad. I had only had 3. I got a few more in this hatch, but I hate losing chicks. I know what happened though. I have not had a problem with pasty butt, in years. The bantams are so tiny, that the crumbles are still to big for them. I lost the 1 from pasty butt. I've always ground crumbles, but got lazy and hadn't done it. Last night I ground part and then I made mash and I'm fermenting for them. I also added ACV to the water. I had been making more, so I just didn't add it before, so they have it now, even though it could have set for a while longer. I need to find a way to set up a bucket and do nipple waterers for them. I don't want to keep filling those waterers and I had a horrible thing happen to the other Jap chick I lost. I was holding chicks back and I must have blinked, because I didn't see it run up behind the waterer. It had been about 20 minutes after I set that thing in there and I went to check them for the night and one was missing. My first though was poor Rascal. There was shavings in the waterer so I picked it up and I had set it on the chick. You have no idea how sick I was over that. My poor daughter just kept looking on me and trying to get my mind off of it the rest of the evening, but I'm still sick about it. I used smaller ones in the brooder last night, just so I could see better, plus I had wood pieces to set everything on, so the shavings aren't as big a problem.

Time to run to the feed store. I had about 1/2 a 5 pound bag last night, before I set all these chicks out there. Some is fermenting, some is soaking for mash and the rest went to quail babies and into the brooder. Time to go buy a #50 bag.

 

[sewandgrow]

I had 2 get pasty butt from the bunch in the brooder too, both Delawares, but I just washed both of them off & started putting sand on their dish when I feed them their chopped scrambled eggs & Yogurt & they were fine.
Sorry about your baby Jap. I hatched out just 4 for Coy.

 

[wolftracks]

Love the Japs. They hatch so well too. I should have a couple of nice pens of them after this Spring. Same with the chocolate AM bantams and this last hatch I hatched out a little roo and 2 pullets. Now if I could get a bunch of eggs that hatch and get that ratio, I'd be happy. The Easter hatch I got 2 and 2.

Crowslanding was closed off, so I just got back from Jesse's with feed. Cinco de Mayo parade earlier and people are still walking in the street, like it's still blocked off. I used to love Cinco de Mayo, but I was going to go wash the car and the Explorer and I think I'll just stay in the house. LOL

The chicks are really liking the mash and one of the EEs likes the waterer platform. Every time I go out there, she's streched out and sleeping. Once she even had her head laying over the side. Scared the heck out of me, but I guess she likes to sleep like a cat. LOL Didn't get my very few Modern Games to hatch. Kayla is waiting for babies from that pen. 4 to 6 more would be nice. I have a project pen for some of my American Games. I have a rooster that's mixed with Sumatra and I love him, but he's 3 now and I'm trying to get babies. I have one of this daughters in a pen with Silver Phoenix and got one to hatch. I can't wait to see what it is and how it turns out. I love the look of the Games and It would be so cool to see an exaggerated tail on one. I need to add more colors in though. Maybe I'll try breeding my Slash Sumatra in there somehow. It's fun to play with colors and types, but not something I'm doing a lot with, because I have sooo many others that I work on. I'm hoping more of the 5 Lt Sussex I hatched out are pullets, but even at days old, it's looking like cockerels. I'd really like to have at least 8 hens eventually.

Need to go list an auction and then start filling up buckets with all this feed. Wish my body wanted to do more, but I'm having kind of a down day today. So tired all the time.