Hi! I’m Amer!
I used to breed other breeds, including Ameraucanas, but now I found my focus.
I raise quail, bbs, and cuckoo d’Anvers bantams as well as bantam Buckeyes.
I’m a fairly new breeder.
I bought bbs and cuckoo d’Anvers first from Aubrey Webb, spring, 2017. Since he was unable to produce fifteen of these, which I totally understood, he sent blue and lavender cuckoos and lavenders as well.
Unfortunately, my birds got sick from a respiratory infection. At the time, I didn’t understand biosecurity. It took me quite a long time to remove this disease from my flock. Few of these birds remained, and Aubrey Webb discontinued breeding.
The birds left over were mediocre at best. I had some lavender cuckoo and cuckoo cockerels, no pullets. I had black pullets and a lavender blue pullet.
I bought more stock that fall at a show but the quality just got worse. I also had lots of lavenders... and lavender splits, which I didn’t want. I had just been trying to get blues from the lavender blue. And the blacks I bred had leakage.
Eventually I removed all of these but two lavender blue hens (for pets) and one black hen (for blue breeding.)
I also ended up with a cuckoo hen who was 1/4 Dominique bantam, who I tried to breed for her superior stripes (cuckoo d’Anvers have very bad patterning, as a rule) but she ended up being an egg eater.
Spring 2019 I got a pair of young quail d’Anvers and a blue quail pullet from Tyler Johnson, since there were no d’Anvers of the preffered colors in Wisconsin. I just wanted something to work with, I guess.
Summer 2019 I bred them.
Fall 2019 I went a swap. John’s Poultry was there with a couple nice blue d’Anvers pullets and a few decent black cockerels. I bought one each, but my friend Wyatt Burnside promised to sell me a pair at the Ohio Nationals, so I hoped to get a better cockerel, and another pullet.
At the Ohio Nationals I got a splash cockerel and a blue pullet from Wyatt and a cuckoo pair from Robert Todd Herren.
The cuckoo cock died.
I ended up having to breed the cuckoo hen with the black cockerel. I also used the 1/4 Dominique hen, but I never got eggs from her and she became a pet.
I bred the blue pullets with the splash cockerel.
I bred the quail pair, blue quail pullet, and two quail pullets hatched that summer.
Now I have many young quails and quite a few single-barred cuckoo cockerels, black pullets, and blue and splash d’Anvers running around. We will see how they shape up.
I hope to acquire a Dominique bantam cockerel this fall to breed with my cuckoo hen to improve the barring, introduce silver to the cuckoo, and cut the gold brass out of the cock.
I hope to clean up the blue lacing.
The non-quail d’Anvers are quite a work in progress, but this year, I finally started with the birds I can use to get them going in the diret
Mike Sullivan was kind enough to give me a pair of bantam Buckeyes.
I got my first pair of bantam Buckeyes
fall 2017, but the hen died of prolapse with her first egg so I got a replacement hen from Mike fall 2018.
I bred the pair and got enough chicks to sell broodstock to others and improve in the next generation in the pullet department.
Fall 2019 I kept the cock (he was better than the cockerels I hatched) and received a nice cockerel of a different line from Mike.
I bred these with my 2019 pullets.
I’m currently the only breeder of bantam Buckeyes that I know of in Wisconsin, but I hope that will change. I love competition.
I will show you current pictures of my four-month-olds when I can get them and they aren’t totally soaked from the rain.
Greeter
Friend
Spirit
Educator
I know most hard core breeders are older and therefore may not be as tech savvy, but I was still hopeful that there may be a couple out there...anyone??
