Heel low:
Yeh, I bin busy...I have my own thread (Pear-A-Dice-July 30, 2014) to nurture with posts as to what is up here so not been here in a while. I plug our heritage poultry hobby all over BYC...no matter how widdle the flock, the simple fact you exercise yer right to own chooks and eat what you produce...is a fabulous exercise in flexing our rights to control our food supply--from start to finish and self sufficient!
Course the Chants only amplify that concept...Brother Wilfrid made the Canadian Chicken for the common folk; for winter eggs and delicious meat to grace our plates and warm our innards. Bro W only enhanced our abilities to live life well and to the fullest, eh.
July 13, 2015
Busy hunkering in on what seeds I shall be planting this spring (greens for poultry, sugar peas for dogs) and firing up the greenhouse after quite a lapse (Canuck buck sucks, so produce prices are making it worthwhile to grow more veg of our own...and fruits...finding tomatoes that are long storers and such). It is only gonna get busier here but I'm not quite dead yet...right?
Sep 19, 2015 - Some of the bounty harvested
Winter eggs are flowing in a abundance now (dang cackleberries every where's!)...so the Bro would be thrilled...both the Standard and the Bantam (project) Chanteclers are pelting us with an abundance of beauty winter eggs, eh.
After a break for moulting...both the Standards and the Bantams started to get back to the daily egg laying routine...
The real blooded bantams I have created...incredible quality eggs from them. This has never been a lacking feature since I created this strain (Higgins White Dove line has been extra exceptionally productive, especially in winter which is where the breed should excel).
MEDIUM - 50.9 grams!
The standard Chants...
LARGE - 60 grams!
For first eggs and it was colder (-25C) when they came back with eggs...not a bad size. I revel in the Jumbo sized eggs (anything over 69 grams is Jumbo), but I also know if they start out at medium for bantams and large for standards...it is a sensible beginning to what is gonna be even better in the coming months. Gotta give the gals a break on that fact that some of the energy they expel is to be used to keep them warm in winter...not just focussing on egg production!
\
Chantelle enjoying the sunshine
My old gal Chantelle is still alive, very well, and giving us eggs...June 2008...so she is the matriarch of the Buff Chant flock. Her living reassures me that longevity is the foundation of our lines and that disease resistance, production, vigour and temperament are all right there from the start...a good place to build a flock upon. I love that girl...only chicken I have spoilt absolutely rotten. She waits for me by the door every morn...she knows I got her a special treat in my pocket, a bread crumb or a lettuce leaf...specially held for her to tear off a piece...that old gal of mine.
Three Standard Buff hens -
there's that NO wattle eh!
As far as combs, the cushion combs...well I guess I have employed the concept, if it's not broke...& won't mess with it. I tend to ignore combs for the most part. After all I want is met in a bird...then I will pay attention to the comb...seems to work. Not difficult to do and anyone obsessing over comb types needs to really go back and reconsider their priorities...what we put in the breeding pens is not always going to be what is seen on exhibition at the sanctioned shows. Heck, Dr. Carefoot has professed to wringing the neck of winning birds from shows...having produced the bird for the show but it having items he did not want to replicate...hidden recessives can wreak havoc and have you chasing yer tail for years onwards trying to fix things.
The three standard self-buff hens above thar...no wattles, I want some wattles. I know, there's a host of person that figure NO WATTLE is best but I read up on the SOP for the breed and there is a description of wattles in females and males, eh. Harder feather progress, getting there slowly...don't want that soft Buff Orp feather and it is an uphill battle to maintain the self-buff with harder feather properties...but we are making it there...slowly.
Here's a few males I plucked out of winter storage and the thing that screams at me from the photos...eye colour is not reddish bay.
Thank the stars I have hens with good eye colour to breed from.
The above male has small wattles but what a friggin mess they be! I like the comb tho...may explain why he's not adorning a chicken sandwich, eh.
There, round smooth wattles, tad big...earlobes, tad large (them birds gonna figure a way to dissipate the heat!). Comb a bit blobby on the front.
For the most part...all I ever notice is what is missing...not what is there that might be acceptable. Basically you are never gonna be 100% satisfied, but there are moments where I can look past the errors and SEE what we do have.
This one, he's miffed at me picking him up and clicking pics (head feathers are raised!)...wattles not perfect but about the right size. Comb, not half bad...
I like the size of this dude's head gear, comb could be blockier...but his wattles, they are round, small and not totally smooth but acceptable
So the "balancing" act we are jumping hoops with is some wattle of the correct size and shape that are smooth textured...and the complimentary cushion comb. Yeh...so many other factors to worry about before we even address phenotype...a mere child may be taught to identify a cushion comb...no big feat in that. It is the other things we require like vigour, temperament, production, longevity, disease resistance...the meat of the real matter that matters, eh. I find those that focus on something as insignificant as a comb or wattles, are missing the forest for the tree--picking the splinter outta the other's eye so to speak. That great big comb is attractive to the hens...we small head gearers are going against the very nature of the hen's preferences of what she wants to see in a father of her chicks--a great big old rack of a comb and wattles. Chew on that a while, eh.
The best EVER hackle and saddle markings on a Partridge Chant I had was one with a pea comb. Imagine if I had culled him based on something as silly as comb. You breed him to a cushion combed hen...you'll get cushions in the offspring if you breed as you should, 100 chicks to cull down to 3 (3% retention rate for potential breeders). If'n you breed less than for a three percent retention rate, you simply never produce the numbers to make selections for improvements from.
The phenotype tends to bother the ones focusing on exhibition...not the production and conservation advocates. I don't give a ratz butt if you are breeding Chants that win at the shows...I want eggs and meat, I want long lived and happy healthful birds that charm me into doing things I say we should not...like hand feeding a darn bird, eh!
My Medusa won Cushion Comb Contest here on BYC...
She's another oldster of ours...I made her in 2009 (part x buff) and yeh, here she is this winter...just being a bird in our flocks.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/923862/winner-announced-comb-contest-2014-cushion
Chantecler Standard 'Medusa' - May 14, 2013
Chantecler Standard 'Medusa' - May 14, 2013
Chantecler Standard 'Medusa' - May 14, 2013
Standard Chantecler Medusa - December 2010
Yeh if'n Medusa did not lay a plentiful supply of winter eggs, well she'd not be the apple of moi eye. Beauty is more than skin deep...beauty in the eye ("I") of this beholder is not found in looks...pretty is as pretty does...if she happens to look nice too and suit the Standards...all the more better. She's even more of a keeper. If the birds survive ME...I make more of the same. Sums up the strategy...birds that prosper under my conditions, result in future generations that continue to survive me and all the mistakes I continue to make and yet they continue to prosper.
On the real blooded bantam project...I have a trio of decent buffs, a pair of self-Whites, six hens and two roos in Partridge...and some rather nifty but ever so unrecognized Blue Laced Red Chant hens.
With the steady stream of winter eggs, I am tempted to get hatching but I think with my attentions focussed on my seed orders AND a project in the works of making my own Jacob fleece mattress (France and Italy...quite common to be able to call someone to re-stuff yer 50 year old wool mattress, eh!--not so much here in NA). Add in that I am going to be showing the Australian Cattle Dog pups we imported in August from Australia (two girls, aged six days apart) and sewing up all my dog showing outfits for April...yeh. I had dogs and chooks when I was a kid, I guess I am revisiting my youth, doing what I have always known to be the most fun of all...sucking up time well spent with creatures. Time to post all over BYC has become something more of "where do I get the best bang for my over extended resources," eh!
August 6, 2015 - Help I have fallen <<head over Heelers in LUV>> and I can't get up!
Emmy Lou and Lacy Jill - our monster stock dawgs...
Rick's busy outfitting and pimping out our second like new old Suburban (1988 4x4--the winter DOG bus). He bought the summer one in May, so the whole fam is busy entertaining ourselves...mild winter and there's been way too much action going down running abouts getting in and outta trouble! Cabinet shop will likely get concrete during construction season...the Parking Building was finished last fall...all in all...yeh, busy...
Too busy with living in the real world I suppose.
Which reminds me...suns peaking up...off we all go... got my Singing Brightly Happy Hen flock to play in the sandbox with.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Yeh, I bin busy...I have my own thread (Pear-A-Dice-July 30, 2014) to nurture with posts as to what is up here so not been here in a while. I plug our heritage poultry hobby all over BYC...no matter how widdle the flock, the simple fact you exercise yer right to own chooks and eat what you produce...is a fabulous exercise in flexing our rights to control our food supply--from start to finish and self sufficient!
Course the Chants only amplify that concept...Brother Wilfrid made the Canadian Chicken for the common folk; for winter eggs and delicious meat to grace our plates and warm our innards. Bro W only enhanced our abilities to live life well and to the fullest, eh.
July 13, 2015
Busy hunkering in on what seeds I shall be planting this spring (greens for poultry, sugar peas for dogs) and firing up the greenhouse after quite a lapse (Canuck buck sucks, so produce prices are making it worthwhile to grow more veg of our own...and fruits...finding tomatoes that are long storers and such). It is only gonna get busier here but I'm not quite dead yet...right?
Sep 19, 2015 - Some of the bounty harvested
Winter eggs are flowing in a abundance now (dang cackleberries every where's!)...so the Bro would be thrilled...both the Standard and the Bantam (project) Chanteclers are pelting us with an abundance of beauty winter eggs, eh.
After a break for moulting...both the Standards and the Bantams started to get back to the daily egg laying routine...
The real blooded bantams I have created...incredible quality eggs from them. This has never been a lacking feature since I created this strain (Higgins White Dove line has been extra exceptionally productive, especially in winter which is where the breed should excel).
MEDIUM - 50.9 grams!
The standard Chants...
LARGE - 60 grams!
For first eggs and it was colder (-25C) when they came back with eggs...not a bad size. I revel in the Jumbo sized eggs (anything over 69 grams is Jumbo), but I also know if they start out at medium for bantams and large for standards...it is a sensible beginning to what is gonna be even better in the coming months. Gotta give the gals a break on that fact that some of the energy they expel is to be used to keep them warm in winter...not just focussing on egg production!
Chantelle enjoying the sunshine
My old gal Chantelle is still alive, very well, and giving us eggs...June 2008...so she is the matriarch of the Buff Chant flock. Her living reassures me that longevity is the foundation of our lines and that disease resistance, production, vigour and temperament are all right there from the start...a good place to build a flock upon. I love that girl...only chicken I have spoilt absolutely rotten. She waits for me by the door every morn...she knows I got her a special treat in my pocket, a bread crumb or a lettuce leaf...specially held for her to tear off a piece...that old gal of mine.
Three Standard Buff hens -
there's that NO wattle eh!
As far as combs, the cushion combs...well I guess I have employed the concept, if it's not broke...& won't mess with it. I tend to ignore combs for the most part. After all I want is met in a bird...then I will pay attention to the comb...seems to work. Not difficult to do and anyone obsessing over comb types needs to really go back and reconsider their priorities...what we put in the breeding pens is not always going to be what is seen on exhibition at the sanctioned shows. Heck, Dr. Carefoot has professed to wringing the neck of winning birds from shows...having produced the bird for the show but it having items he did not want to replicate...hidden recessives can wreak havoc and have you chasing yer tail for years onwards trying to fix things.
The three standard self-buff hens above thar...no wattles, I want some wattles. I know, there's a host of person that figure NO WATTLE is best but I read up on the SOP for the breed and there is a description of wattles in females and males, eh. Harder feather progress, getting there slowly...don't want that soft Buff Orp feather and it is an uphill battle to maintain the self-buff with harder feather properties...but we are making it there...slowly.
Here's a few males I plucked out of winter storage and the thing that screams at me from the photos...eye colour is not reddish bay.
The above male has small wattles but what a friggin mess they be! I like the comb tho...may explain why he's not adorning a chicken sandwich, eh.
There, round smooth wattles, tad big...earlobes, tad large (them birds gonna figure a way to dissipate the heat!). Comb a bit blobby on the front.
For the most part...all I ever notice is what is missing...not what is there that might be acceptable. Basically you are never gonna be 100% satisfied, but there are moments where I can look past the errors and SEE what we do have.
This one, he's miffed at me picking him up and clicking pics (head feathers are raised!)...wattles not perfect but about the right size. Comb, not half bad...
I like the size of this dude's head gear, comb could be blockier...but his wattles, they are round, small and not totally smooth but acceptable
So the "balancing" act we are jumping hoops with is some wattle of the correct size and shape that are smooth textured...and the complimentary cushion comb. Yeh...so many other factors to worry about before we even address phenotype...a mere child may be taught to identify a cushion comb...no big feat in that. It is the other things we require like vigour, temperament, production, longevity, disease resistance...the meat of the real matter that matters, eh. I find those that focus on something as insignificant as a comb or wattles, are missing the forest for the tree--picking the splinter outta the other's eye so to speak. That great big comb is attractive to the hens...we small head gearers are going against the very nature of the hen's preferences of what she wants to see in a father of her chicks--a great big old rack of a comb and wattles. Chew on that a while, eh.
The best EVER hackle and saddle markings on a Partridge Chant I had was one with a pea comb. Imagine if I had culled him based on something as silly as comb. You breed him to a cushion combed hen...you'll get cushions in the offspring if you breed as you should, 100 chicks to cull down to 3 (3% retention rate for potential breeders). If'n you breed less than for a three percent retention rate, you simply never produce the numbers to make selections for improvements from.
The phenotype tends to bother the ones focusing on exhibition...not the production and conservation advocates. I don't give a ratz butt if you are breeding Chants that win at the shows...I want eggs and meat, I want long lived and happy healthful birds that charm me into doing things I say we should not...like hand feeding a darn bird, eh!
My Medusa won Cushion Comb Contest here on BYC...
She's another oldster of ours...I made her in 2009 (part x buff) and yeh, here she is this winter...just being a bird in our flocks.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/923862/winner-announced-comb-contest-2014-cushion
Chantecler Standard 'Medusa' - May 14, 2013
Chantecler Standard 'Medusa' - May 14, 2013
Chantecler Standard 'Medusa' - May 14, 2013
Standard Chantecler Medusa - December 2010
Yeh if'n Medusa did not lay a plentiful supply of winter eggs, well she'd not be the apple of moi eye. Beauty is more than skin deep...beauty in the eye ("I") of this beholder is not found in looks...pretty is as pretty does...if she happens to look nice too and suit the Standards...all the more better. She's even more of a keeper. If the birds survive ME...I make more of the same. Sums up the strategy...birds that prosper under my conditions, result in future generations that continue to survive me and all the mistakes I continue to make and yet they continue to prosper.
On the real blooded bantam project...I have a trio of decent buffs, a pair of self-Whites, six hens and two roos in Partridge...and some rather nifty but ever so unrecognized Blue Laced Red Chant hens.
With the steady stream of winter eggs, I am tempted to get hatching but I think with my attentions focussed on my seed orders AND a project in the works of making my own Jacob fleece mattress (France and Italy...quite common to be able to call someone to re-stuff yer 50 year old wool mattress, eh!--not so much here in NA). Add in that I am going to be showing the Australian Cattle Dog pups we imported in August from Australia (two girls, aged six days apart) and sewing up all my dog showing outfits for April...yeh. I had dogs and chooks when I was a kid, I guess I am revisiting my youth, doing what I have always known to be the most fun of all...sucking up time well spent with creatures. Time to post all over BYC has become something more of "where do I get the best bang for my over extended resources," eh!
August 6, 2015 - Help I have fallen <<head over Heelers in LUV>> and I can't get up!
Emmy Lou and Lacy Jill - our monster stock dawgs...
Rick's busy outfitting and pimping out our second like new old Suburban (1988 4x4--the winter DOG bus). He bought the summer one in May, so the whole fam is busy entertaining ourselves...mild winter and there's been way too much action going down running abouts getting in and outta trouble! Cabinet shop will likely get concrete during construction season...the Parking Building was finished last fall...all in all...yeh, busy...
Too busy with living in the real world I suppose.
Which reminds me...suns peaking up...off we all go... got my Singing Brightly Happy Hen flock to play in the sandbox with.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
