Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

HECHICKEN- congrats on your hatch. Woo Hoo!

Oh, you don't understand! I was serious when I said I was bummed. I was shooting for New Hampshires and don't need or want all of those mixed breed chicks. From an experimental standpoint I learned a lot about how/when fertilization occurs but I already am feeding more birds than I want to feed so don't intend to raise more mixes. I hope this won't sound too harsh to people, but the 5 mixes are no more. I also keep pet corn snakes, who do have to eat too. I normally have to buy rather expensive frozen rats at the store, but the snakes will eat chicks when I need to cull, or have one die in the brooder. This way I don't have to feel that the lives of these little chicks was in vain - they may not have had long lives, but they did serve a purpose. And, one less rat has to die as a result. (Which I know may sound strange to some, but to me, a life is a life. The rats bred for snake food are not necessarily treated that humanely so if I can save one from that....)

 

[cleansquared]

So this am i had a learning experiance.. I got up late 8 am instead of 6am so i went out to let the chickens out of the garage i just stood in the door way bad idea 7 chickens come flying at me to get out lol lesson learned.....step out of the doorway

 

[lizzyGSR]

So this am i had a learning experiance.. I got up late 8 am instead of 6am so i went out to let the chickens out of the garage i just stood in the door way bad idea 7 chickens come flying at me to get out lol lesson learned.....step out of the doorway

 

[Polishpal]

Which fair, PolishPal?  The State Fair isn't until September usually, so you must be going to a different one?

I go to the Johnson county fair

 

[Trish44]

I'm kind of bummed. My hatch finished yesterday and was 100%. There were only 6 eggs in that batch but still....out of them I got just ONE New Hampshire. The rest of the chicks were black and were clearly fertilized by my Barred Rock rooster. This means that the theory that the sperm from the freshest matings is used first, did not play out here.

The hen was in the main flock with the BR. I moved her to the hoop coop. The NH rooster immediately mated her. Next day she laid an egg but I figured it was probably "in the works" from before she was in the hoop coop so was almost certainly fertilized by the BR. Same with the egg on day two - I decided it was too soon. She took the third day off from laying. So I started on the 4th day and collected a week's worth of eggs (6 since she took a day off) and set them. I marked the eggs so I knew which day was which. The dismaying thing is that the sperm clearly got "mixed" in whatever storage facility she has because the NH chick was the one laid on day 4. Days 5 and 6 she was back to laying eggs fertilized by the BR. By that time she'd been apart from him over a week and had been mated repeatedly by the NH (since she is the only hen in there she gets all of his attention).

If nothing else, this has been a good experiment.

The next 8 eggs are due a week from tomorrow. I will be very curious to see if we start to get a higher preponderance of NH chicks out of this next batch or if it is more of the same.

The good news is that fertility has been 100% so far (the 8 are all moving) and I can't complain about 100% hatch either.

*******

On another note I have a fascinating story to tell of "life will find a way". I have broody ducks and gave them a few eggs to incubate. I had marked the eggs under the hens with a sharpie so I'd know which ones NOT to collect. On the waxy duck eggs, the sharpie mark quickly faded and I then had to be careful not to collect the wrong eggs. Inevitably I made a mistake and brought in an egg that had been incubated for about a week but didn't realize it and put it in the carton with the "fresh" eggs. 3-4 days later I decided to set the eggs in the incubator as a hedge against the eggs under the ducks not hatching. Only as I was setting did I notice the faint sharpie mark on one of the eggs. I decided to experiment and leave it there and see what happened. Well, that was 3 weeks ago. The eggs are due to hatch in 6 days. I candled yesterday and that egg has clearly continued to develop and I saw the duckling moving!!! To recap, after incubating a week, it sat at room temperature for 3-4 days without being turned, and when set in the incubator, apparently picked up where it left off.

And, ironically, this time the eggs under the ducks have done well and yesterday 5-6 ducklings hatched. They are in a barrel nest with, I think, 1 broody duck and about 5 broody hens. The six "mamas" seem to be sharing the ducklings well but continuing to sit on the remaining 2-3 eggs.

Well that's something we all learned from your "experiment" in breeding, that's interesting. You will have to tell us how the next hatch comes out.

I didn't know there was a fair coming up either. Would love to know when and where?
There are several big shows in the fall and spring. There is a book that lists all of them, it costs a little bit of money but is a great resource for the listings. I will find the name for you today. Too bad Hawkeye isn't on here, she would know right off the top of her head.
I think I would be too scared that I would forget to pick it up and the birds would get into it or one of our weirdo cats would. Maybe the mice go back to their holes and then died?


Trish- If you see this I have a question about the FB poultry swap. Is it ok to list birds for sale on craigslist then just post a link to the ad on FB? That way I don't have to upload pics to two places? Thanks!

There are a lot of county fairs around, I know we have a Cowley County Fair here in Winfield every year & there are quite a few around the state. You can probably google it & find a listing somewhere.

Josie, yes that's fine if you put a link on there for your ad on CL, I have had others do that, just watch for questions though on your ad.

My turkey hens actually didn't want to be out of their pen today, it's too hot. I let them out for a brief time & even before I was ready to come back in this morning they wanted back in their pen. They're getting kind of spoiled by the "pool" in their pen that is in there for the ducks because they get in there too & stand in it to cool their feet. They decided they would much rather be in there where they had water to stand in. I don't know what they will do when I do get the duck pen built & move them out. They sure have made a muddy mess in the turkey pen. They're getting so big, I need to take some pics of them & post them. Maybe I can get that done this afternoon, I was planning to take some of the goat shelter anyway.

 

[Trish44]

Good morning ! Are there any other poultry shows in the Kansas area besides the fairs? Nothing against fairs ,they are just usually so hot. That weekend in Oct around Columbus Day the kids are usually out of school, where do I go to look.

I did find this, there might be others, but this is the first thing that came up: http://www.poultryshowcentral.com/Kansas.html

 

[HEChicken]

This afternoon I grabbed my camera and went and took pics. Lots of pics. Even after culling the bad ones, I have LOTS of pics to share.

Here goes:

Mama Broody with her brood of ducklings. I don't know if you can tell but the duckling here is not the black and yellow like I'm used to seeing, that turn into black ducks, but this one is sort of grayish brown and yellow. There is also a black/yellow duckling in this batch and the difference is quite noticeable.




I love the little one in the back, how it appears to be cocking its head to look at the camera. The one I am most interested in seeing how it develops is in the front in the above picture but here is one of it on its own. Interestingly, in addition to the different coloration of the body, it has blue eyes! I don't know if they will show up on screen or not, but they are really quite distinctive looking.


While I was at it, I had to get some pics of the other batches. To recap, I've now hatched 5 batches of ducklings.

The first to hatch contained a lone duckling and it was about 10 days old at the May 13th get together. It started out being a mostly yellow duckling. Here he is now:



The next batch is about a month old. Here they are now:


They started out as 3 yellow/black and one yellow. I believe the 3 black/yellows are all girls and the one yellow is a boy. Here is a close up of him. Notice how similar he is to the oldest one!




The next batch after that one is now about 3 weeks old. Here they are. They were parked at the waterer and I thought it was so sweet that the newly hatched ducklings came out from under Mama Aloha to join their older siblings. The nice thing is, the ducks all get along as one big, happy family so they don't pick on the little ones like chickens will do with new chicks. The two batches, quite different in size and development, all hung together while I took several photos.




Here is one of the 3 week olds with two of the newest babies. I thought this was just a really cute pic, with the older one looking at the camera.

And here is the lone yellow duckling from this hatch, who just happened to stand up and flap his pathetic little wings as I turned the camera on him. It was too good not to share:




Now for chickens. I color code my mama hens and their babies LOL. I have a white cochin raising a white baby:


And a mille fleur cochin raising a New Hamp chick:



I'm kicking myself now that I didn't take pics of my blue cochin raising a black barred rock chick!

Here is my new ram who arrived last night. He should get bigger yet - he was only born in February.



And last, the little goats today. They've started to settle into their new quarters and have been out grazing quite a bit today.

 

[ChickenPeep]

I am in LOVE with that Mille Fleur cochin!!!

 

[chicken danz]

Busy dirty day here. I moved cages and stuff and tilled a big pen today. It was pretty hard and dirty work. I pressure washed two big cages and moved them out of the garage attached pen where I did the tilling. Then I pressure washed and disinfected the brooder house. Got all the equipment and the house sterilized and moved a bunch of chicks from the house outside. At the moment, the only chicks I have in the house are some peachicks. I do have some ducklings in here right now though. I have a few of those that need to graduate to the outside pen as well.
Of course since I've been working outside, my house is a total disaster. Maybe someday I'll manage to clean it again too.
I desperately need a shower but also need to go water the birds one more time.
I have cut the bottoms out of 55 gallon plastic barrels and made little "pools" out of them for the birds to stand in. It is weird though. They like the colored ones but don't like standing in the white ones. Isn't that strange?
I can use the white ones as nests for the peafowl and turkey though. I am sure they wouldn't notice the color if it is full of straw bedding.
I still have more houses to clean out in the next week or so but it takes a lot of time and effort in this heat.
Good luck Polish Pal with the fair.
I am letting a guy take one of my white peacocks to show this year. I made him agree to pay for it if it gets sick or dies. It makes me very very nervous. He promises he will keep it fed and watered and have a fan on it at all times. Just the same. I'm not sure if I will need to quarantine it when I get it home or not. I do know I will take the time to go check it out though and make sure it is being cared for properly.

 

[22qZoo]

I did find this, there might be others, but this is the first thing that came up: http://www.poultryshowcentral.com/Kansas.html

Saved it ,thank you.