Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

I am new chicken mom in NE KS. I did the TSC purchase of 6 adorable, variety pack of bantams. Have to see what they grow into! I will post pics soon. I am glad to meet folks in KS here on backyard chickens!

Welcome, jump in any time, we have had quite a few new members lately. We would love to see your little chicks, we love photos here!

Well I got up too early this morning due to "attend" the Cream Legbar Club online meeting this morning & now I'm crashing already, not good. We did get our official club logo decided, so I guess that was productive, but we had technical sound difficulties at the last, so it kind of went downhill then. I hope they get it fixed next time so we can understand what is being said better. Danz, I'm glad you made it today. I had quite a few things I wanted to accomplish today, but now I don't know if that's going to happen as tired as I am. It's hard to balance our schedule here with other things sometimes.

It's cloudy here today, not as chilly, so maybe if I have the energy I can go out & work some on getting the wire on the hoop coop, we'll see.

HEChicken, thanks for sharing those pics of the BRs & NHs. Those BRs remind me of the one I got from Eileen, they're blocky like that & the two blue Barred ones I got are really growing fast & I think will be big girls too. I'll try to get some pics today if I can.

Danz, I do have some pens with more than one rooster, usually only two. I have found if they are raised together they seem to do OK. I have two Cream Legbars that haven't been raised together, but so far they seem to be doing OK & the two SFH roosters are brothers so they haven't fought so far anyway. I did have problems before I moved the SFH to the new coop & had 4 of them, I had to re-home two because they were fighting among them, but just the two seem to be doing fine. I do have problems with my Speckled Sussex rooster wanting to spar with the roosters next door, but he has been like that from the beginning. Any other rooster he gets near he wants to fight with. I have been thinking of putting a piece of tin between the two pens just so he can't see them. He has bloodied his own comb jumping at the other one trying to get at him through the wire, silly boy. I think the pinless peepers certainly would be worth a try for you, I don't think they cost that much. Let us know if you get them & how they work out.

 

[cherwill]

Anyone in the Topeka area who would be interested in helping rehome some family pets.... Our chickens.... Please private message me. I promised the kids I would find homes for them that they would be loved and enjoyed for their personalities as much as we have enjoyed them. Our neighbors have been very hateful. Encouraging their children to be hateful, as if a back yard flock is "white trash" versus being ecologically sound, as well as very enjoyable as pets. We cant handle vandalism to the house or yard in spite... My children don't need, and can't handle, anything else to damage their self esteem. They already get teased for being Asian and not looking like me, not being wanted in China, for facial differences... They need to be able to ride the bus without adding one more thing to be teased about to the list:-(
That's terrible. I will never understand the people who tease your children. I'm sorry about your flock. I'm sure there are a couple of neighborhoods here where chickens wouldn't be welcome, but mine seems to really enjoy having them around, and there are people all over town with small flocks in their backyards. WHY does it bother some people more than other pets, like cats and dogs?

I am new chicken mom in NE KS. I did the TSC purchase of 6 adorable, variety pack of bantams. Have to see what they grow into! I will post pics soon. I am glad to meet folks in KS here on backyard chickens!

Welcome! We love pictures here, if you feel like posting any.

I went out and took some photos of my Reese birds today, to update from their original pics when I first got them. I'm pleased with how they are maturing. I was at first a little disappointed in what looked like a "hump" in the cockerel's back. It was something I thought was conformational and could not see it improving with age. His back is still not the "slightly concave" called for in the SOP but it is no longer as humped as it was either. Perhaps he was still building muscle and has built some up in the fore and aft of his back since then. I dunno. Anyway, here are his before and after pics (first pic, about 4 months, second 5 1/2 months):





Here is one of the New Hampshire hens from Reese. I love the vibrant "orange" color to her - quite different to the reddish color of my Production Red hens:


Here is the same hen next to the Reese BR hen (love the contrast)

And here is the BR hen on her own. You can tell that Frank is breeding for meat, can't you? What a little butterball [where is that licking lips smiley?]


Beautiful birds. That orange is close to the color my hair used to be when I was much younger!

Sapphire and Hechicken you are right. I did write Neosporin rather than Neomycin. My bad. Old age and I didn't take time to go find a tube of stuff to look at. You'd think since this stuff breaks me out in a blistery rash I would know the correct name. It was just a brain fart.
As they say "Google before posting." I knew what I was talking about and just assumed you could read my mind.

Well I have a story to relate. When the gulls came in the other day and Marshmallow kept chasing one of them off, I discovered they left one of their buddies behind. It has been walking and flying around my yard for two days. It's an egret. Yesterday it kept going in to eat and drink in the big pen. So this morning it got in there and panicked cause it couldn't get out. (It kept flying up into the net and couldn't locate the door. ) So I went in and caught it. I have it in a cage right now with some food. I just wanted to take some pictures of it.
This is a cattle egret and it has it's mating colors on. I did some reading yesterday on them and they normally mate in colonies but apparently this one got confused and followed a group of gulls rather than it's own kind. I am sure having lots of birds around made this seem like safe place to be. I plan to take some pictures and then let it go. I have no idea how it will ever find more of it's kind. I do know it is very hungry though. I did see it catch a mouse and eat it and from what I read they like eating ticks and flies best. Too bad I couldn't encourage it to just stick around and eat flies all summer. Pictures will follow after it gets warmer. I was out running around in my jammies and no jacket today doing this.

How cool. I'm looking forward to the pictures.

I need to get a good picture of Ruby so you all can tell me what she is. We'd ended up with a stray BO and to keep her company, bought Ruby out of an unmarked bin, just odds and ends left over at Orscheln that fall. We, and the cashier, flipped through the charts of chicks trying to identify her breed just to satisfy our curiosity. The cashier told us which breeds they'd had in for fall and, as a chick, she looked just like the silver-laced wyandottes. As an adult, I've never been quite sure. I think she doesn't have that pronounced a lace pattern, but she doesn't look like the barred rocks, either, and besides, they didn't have those in the fall.

I have a bird laying funky eggs lately, and the shells are thinner than our other eggs. She lays almost daily, but their shells are uneven and often wrinkled looking in places. This is the most wrinkly one yet. I couldn't manage to get a clearer picture at such close range.

 

[blueeyeskms]

Gosh, you all sure move along quickly on the posts! I can't keep up! Last time I checked in I was on page 2176 and now it is 2241. I know, I'm not very good at checking in either - I just really like to read all the posts rather than write my own...

I've had quite a time. I don't think I was meant to add to my chicken flock this year. Our first incubator hatching experience (daughter got a new incubator for Christmas) began with the shipment (4 boxes) of hatching eggs getting lost in the snow storm. BTW, one box is still missing (since February) and I can now finally file a claim hopefully. I couldn't stabilize humidity on that batch (LG) and had 0% hatch out of the shipped (one homegrown mutt hatched) although many were full grown in the shell. In the meantime, I had bought a batch of Welsummer chicks. I then added two other batches of baby chicks but threw in a couple of 3-week old EE's and bantams because they were so darn cute. The night before Easter noticed one of the older sneezing, gasping for air, so took it away from the others and started Duramycin (what I had on hand). Too late!!! Within days had chicks dying left and right. Now, out of about 40 chicks I am down to about 10. Did a 2-week treatment of Duramycin because I just couldn't pin-point the symptoms enough to know what else to give them. Then noticed my old hens sneezing (part of the chicks were in a separate room of the coop) and wheezing and went from 9 to 0 eggs in 2 days. Started them on Duramycin as well and they seem to be bouncing right back, not the eggs yet. Had my second round of eggs in the bator during this time. Had trouble with the tempurature fluctuating on this one (set at 100 but would bounce from 97 - 102) even though the temperature stayed on target the entire 1st attempt. Of course still can't keep the humidity stable. Today is day 22 and have 2 chicks out of original 44 eggs with no signs of other life. Had ordered another batch to be delivered next week but now they are not going to arrive yet either. Gonna have to find me some other day-olds to go with these two.

I've had chickens for over 10 years and never experienced anything like this. Last year we bought new chicks from Orschelns and ended up losing a bunch of them. Something was going in at night and taking them out and popping their heads off and eating their insides. Hubby ended up pulling the truck over by the pen one night and left the radio on and no death after that. So, will have to find an old plug-in radio I guess, just in case.

So, will check Orscheln's tomorrow - but does anyone have any baby chicks within a reasonable distance from Burlington/Waverly that they might have for sale and if so what breed?

Does anyone have any hatching eggs - for my daughter's sake I am agreeing to give it one more try although this has turned in to a terribly expensive "experiment."

 

[HEChicken]

Cherwill - that is really a funky looking egg. I've had a wrinkled one from time to time but not on a regular basis. It sounds as though your hen has something going on in her egg production factory but as long as she appears healthy, I wouldn't worry about it. I wouldn't try to sell those eggs though, unless you list them on eBay as some exotic type of egg, fabulously rare, and watch as the price on them goes sky high because some people have to have something that hardly anyone else has. Tee hee.

Your bird may well be a SLW as if she came from a feed store, she came from a hatchery, and hatcheries don't always take a lot of time to breed their birds to the standard - it is all about volume with them. Please don't get me wrong - I have plenty of hatchery birds in my own flock and am as fond of them as any others. But, as an example, you can get Barred Rocks with big floppy combs (they're supposed to have small combs), birds that should have pea combs, that end up with single combs, "Rhode Island Reds" that are really nothing more than Production Reds - and so on - all from hatcheries. So it wouldn't surprise me if they hatched a SLW that doesn't have good enough lacing to be easily identified as the breed it is.

 

[COOP Group]

I am new chicken mom in NE KS. I did the TSC purchase of 6 adorable, variety pack of bantams. Have to see what they grow into! I will post pics soon. I am glad to meet folks in KS here on backyard chickens!

Welcome to BYC! I would love to see some pics of your new chicks! I'm in Overland Park and can't have chickens so I live vicariously through all of you here!

 

[HEChicken]

So, will check Orscheln's tomorrow - but does anyone have any baby chicks within a reasonable distance from Burlington/Waverly that they might have for sale and if so what breed?

Does anyone have any hatching eggs - for my daughter's sake I am agreeing to give it one more try although this has turned in to a terribly expensive "experiment."

I'm sorry you've been having a rough time of it. If its any consolation you aren't the first person to have problems stabilizing the temps in a styro-bator.

Danz is there in Waverly and pretty much always has chicks, right Danz? She would probably also be willing to help out with hatching eggs.

 

[sapphireblu76]

I have no idea what mix you'd get with lavender and chocolate, but I wouldn't think they would mesh. Lavender is the only gene (that looks like blue, but isn't) that breeds true! (which is the whole reason it is called "self blue") You can breed lavender with black and safely get lavender and splits. But that's as far as I would go with the lavender gene. I DO know that you can also breed lavender into BBS, but then you get some odd things going on, but it's not too terrible. Actually, I have lavender in my blues and splash (not my blacks). I have to say, I really love the lighter color it brings into the blues, but it lightens up the splash so much, that you need to breed splash to a dark blue or black to bring it back. But it works out great for blues. Here is what I dug up for you on my silkie site (keeping in mind that ALL chicken genetics are the same regardless of breed): Keep in mind also when they are talking about lavender producing blue, they are NOT talking about the genetics of "Bl", but actually the visual coloring.. Lavender is "lav" and it is it's OWN gene.

Lavender birds sometimes are called 'self blue' because they breed true unlike the ones with the andalusian blue gene. If your blue silkies are lavender homozygotes, then your progeny would all be lavender. If they were both Bl / bl+ (blue heterozygotes), only half of the chicks would be blue.
"Recessive lavender has been associated with poor feather quality and even lack of feathers in some breeds. Lavender dilutes both black and red; changes black to grey and red to cream. Blue fowls termed "self blue" are normally lavender homozygotes. A mating of two lav homozygotes (blue fowls) will produce blue offspring. Lavender causes dilution by inhibiting the transfer of pigment granules from melanocytes, which produce them, to the feather structure. Lavender expression in homozygotes is present in chicks and
adults."

(below is Kippenjungle)
Then came Lavender or self blue, for the other blue tends to be laced in appearance. This is a recessive mutation often associated with bad feather structure. Ihe consensus is that it is epistatic to the other dilutants by the nature of expression mechanism. Truely epistatic would mean however that it would also cover splash or khaki (hence "white?" in table below). This needs to be confirmed either way.

​

Until then the fanciers' consensus is that the whites would not permit to show the lavender tint. This tint is lighter than splash Blue. Other poultry species' lavenders/self blues do not seem to act epistatic to other diluters and contribute in further dilution of the eumelanin. Lavender also dilutes Phaeomelanin (groundcolor) in chickens.

So to sum it up if you breed lav and white, the white will cover the lav. (or it should because white is usually dominant and it turns off all other colors) Lav can dilute or cover some genes, but not all. Black will often cover lav-- so you can get a visually "black" bird that is actually a split. (not a true black, because black should have NO dilution, but in this case would have lav). So if you bred that black split to lav or another split, you could get some lav. But this would be a messy or terrible way to continue a line of Blacks. You would never want to put a split back in a pen of pure black.

And ultimately, this isn't a gene I'm purposely working with, and so really don't know much more, than I have it in my blue and splash flock right now and how to work with it there. It has produced some amazing feather color for my blues and splash. In it's purest form (lav), it's a tough one to do well since it can present a lot of it's own faults. If you are really interested in Lavender, I would stick with breeding lavender X lavender or lav X black. Unless you are driving for a particular color pattern that needs the lavender-- though it isn't a typical gene you'd want to infuse into anything other than possibly "Bl" or a dilution of it. ??? I know people are using it to lighten up blues, but that's about it. And that was only to meet the standards on blues, because it seems like with poor breeding or understanding of the Bl gene, peope are breeding very dark blues, which are undesirable. Have you talked with the Maran's thread? They might have some more info-- because they seem to really be in the loop.

Awesome, thanks! I tried using the calculator and it kept telling me I'd get all black offspring. But, I don't know how to do all the settings, so who knows, lol. I was just curious anyway, since I don't have any black. No, I didn't check the Marans thread, I don't have any Marans those colors and I get irritated having so many threads update in my email. That's neither here nor there, though. I appreciate the info, thank you

I went out and took some photos of my Reese birds today, to update from their original pics when I first got them. I'm pleased with how they are maturing. I was at first a little disappointed in what looked like a "hump" in the cockerel's back. It was something I thought was conformational and could not see it improving with age. His back is still not the "slightly concave" called for in the SOP but it is no longer as humped as it was either. Perhaps he was still building muscle and has built some up in the fore and aft of his back since then. I dunno. Anyway, here are his before and after pics (first pic, about 4 months, second 5 1/2 months):





Here is one of the New Hampshire hens from Reese. I love the vibrant "orange" color to her - quite different to the reddish color of my Production Red hens:


Here is the same hen next to the Reese BR hen (love the contrast)

And here is the BR hen on her own. You can tell that Frank is breeding for meat, can't you? What a little butterball [where is that licking lips smiley?]

Wow, the barring on them is really striking!

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Hawkeye-- Thank you. Yes we do need out of here. The only problem is that we have no money to move somewhere else. That is the only thing stopping us.

 

[sharol]

Medawinks has posted that she needs a new home for her chickens. I'm not sure about the age, but they have made it past the tiny stage, and they are in Topeka. It might pay you to check with her about adopting her flock. check back for her original post back a couple or 3 pages. If I were just starting out and had room for them, I'd take them in a heartbeat. (She has bad neighbor problems.

Sharol

.

I've had quite a time. I don't think I was meant to add to my chicken flock this year. Our first incubator hatching experience (daughter got a new incubator for Christmas) began with the shipment (4 boxes) of hatching eggs getting lost in the snow storm. BTW, one box is still missing (since February) and I can now finally file a claim hopefully. I couldn't stabilize humidity on that batch (LG) and had 0% hatch out of the shipped (one homegrown mutt hatched) although many were full grown in the shell. In the meantime, I had bought a batch of Welsummer chicks. I then added two other batches of baby chicks but threw in a couple of 3-week old EE's and bantams because they were so darn cute. The night before Easter noticed one of the older sneezing, gasping for air, so took it away from the others and started Duramycin (what I had on hand). Too late!!! Within days had chicks dying left and right. Now, out of about 40 chicks I am down to about 10. Did a 2-week treatment of Duramycin because I just couldn't pin-point the symptoms enough to know what else to give them. Then noticed my old hens sneezing (part of the chicks were in a separate room of the coop) and wheezing and went from 9 to 0 eggs in 2 days. Started them on Duramycin as well and they seem to be bouncing right back, not the eggs yet. Had my second round of eggs in the bator during this time. Had trouble with the tempurature fluctuating on this one (set at 100 but would bounce from 97 - 102) even though the temperature stayed on target the entire 1st attempt. Of course still can't keep the humidity stable. Today is day 22 and have 2 chicks out of original 44 eggs with no signs of other life. Had ordered another batch to be delivered next week but now they are not going to arrive yet either. Gonna have to find me some other day-olds to go with these two.

 

[chicken danz]

I'd like to welcome the new people. Jump in, chatter show pictures etc.
Blueeyes I sent you a PM.
I ran out and took some pictures earlier of the cattle egret.
Here ya go. I wanted to get a better picture of his back because he has long flowing feathers in the orange color that fall down. He wasn't cooperating in the cage.