Crossing my Red Ranger Hens.

[BlueBaby]

@Compost King I'm really liking this Dork X chick that hatched out the other day! I can hardly see how it grow's out!

Edit: This site seem's to be messing up on me right now. It won't let me do anything until all of the ad's fill in.

 

[Compost King]

@Compost King I'm really liking this Dork X chick that hatched out the other day! I can hardly see how it grow's out!

Edit: This site seem's to be messing up on me right now. It won't let me do anything until all of the ad's fill in.

When it grows up to eat the spilt feed before eating from the feeder you will really appreciate it. I noticed this behavior start around between Weeks 3 and 6. Between the heavy winter laying and the clean up eating habits I want a Dorking or a Dorking Cross in every flock in the future. Great supplemental breed for any mixed flock. Since the eggs are white (or off-white for the crosses) I can put them in a breeding flock for brown or blue eggs and know which eggs are to be collected. They also go broody if you leave a pile for them. Although I have not left a pile for any of the crosses yet because I lack the resources for too many broody hens at once. I do want to test out the half Red Ranger half Dorking hens for broodiness in spring because they look like they can fit a lot of eggs under them.

I have been struggling with ads screwing up my BYC experience too, I restart my computer and it fixes it, frustrating because I often have something else going on and can't restart at that very moment.

 

[BlueBaby]

@Compost King I used to spend more time here on the site, but have stopped being here as much now because of all of the ad's screwing me up on my experience. I'm not sure if having a paid membership here would even allow me to be ad-free here or not.

 

[Compost King]

@Compost King I used to spend more time here on the site, but have stopped being here as much now because of all of the ad's screwing me up on my experience. I'm not sure if having a paid membership here would even allow me to be ad-free here or not.

I hope the ad problem gets fixed you are an important part of the BYC Community.

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I thought I would share a couple pictures of my 2 runts in the 3/4 Dorking generation. I thought I had 3 but its only 2. One is very small the other is moderately small but with mangled looking feet. Its hard to get pictures of specific birds in these crowded brooders because someone is always getting in the way of the camera shot.

The guy on the right has mangled look toes, Not sure how it happened but I think it happened during the hatch because I noticed it in the early days in the first stage brooder (in 2nd stage now about to be moved to 3rd stage). He isn't is standing on a block and the white guy next to him is standing in a hole. But you can tell the one definitely has a smaller body.

You can see the Mangle foot male on the left but to his right near the center of the picture is the other Runt and assumed female (too soon to know for sure), She is much smaller and even seems bantam sized. She was also lethargic yesterday but today seems full of energy. She gets crushed by the other birds sometimes as they start to outgrow their confines. They are about to move to the next brooder as early as tomorrow. I might keep the Runts behind to be raised with the next batch. I do this with Seramas and other special needs chickens or high priority chickens I can't risk being bullied to death as they graduate to the Juvenile Bird Coop. Its the roughest of transitions to go from brooder to multi aged birds.

The smallest Run in under that out of use Feeder/Waterer. I am considering breeding the 2 runts and seeing what I get. Never heard of a Bantam Dorking before but it may be what comes of this. It would be strange to say "yeah I made this Bantam by crossing a Meat Bird and the Large Fowl version of this Breed" but maybe that is what is happening. Or maybe the 2 Runts are normal sized and the rest ended up being giants. Or maybe neither of those are true and the Runts just happen to take longer to get to full size. Time will tell

 

[BlueBaby]

@Compost King Yes, the mangled looking feet can happen when they hatch out. That's why people make those boot thing's for the feet right away to help straighten them out.

 

[Molpet]

@Compost King I used to spend more time here on the site, but have stopped being here as much now because of all of the ad's screwing me up on my experience. I'm not sure if having a paid membership here would even allow me to be ad-free here or not.

I was given a paid membership and it did stop the adds
Also. on a phone, ad block browser does too https://adblockbrowser.org/

 

[BlueBaby]

I was given a paid membership and it did stop the adds
Also. on a phone, ad block browser does too https://adblockbrowser.org/

I am on a desktop one, and I haven't seen any ad's here with something that I would want to buy.

 

[Parront]

I am on a desktop one, and I haven't seen any ad's here with something that I would want to buy.

I use Firefox with "AdBlock". No ads here!

 

[BlueBaby]

I use Firefox with "AdBlock". No ads here!

Thanks! Hubby and I will check it out.

 

[Compost King]

Update on the 6 CX I have going, the 3 males who I am letting eat themselves silly are large enough to process. They aren't quite fully feathered but they are huge. Not much bigger than Cornish Game Hens but still big enough for me. I see no reason to see how big they can get. They they will turn 5 weeks old at Midnight. The 3 females who have had rationed feed for just under a week now are significantly smaller. Females are smaller of course but they are fit. They run around (looking for food) they scratch and peck and one even flew over the Compost pile and unfortunately for the 3/4 Dorking buddy bird she landed on she landed on that Dorking. Poor thing. Just a week of Feed Rationing and there is a huge difference in size. The Males stumble around now and can not stay standing for long. They only stand long enough to reach the feeder. Most people do 12 hours on 12 hours off for feeding but I just let them have 24 hour free feed and process early. The sooner I process the better. We have temps above 85 until Thursday and that will likely be my processing day. If I remember I will take pictures. The size difference is so big that they do not even look like the same age.

The slow white broiler was not roosting when I closed the coops tonight, I pick her up and put her on the roosting bar and she felt really light. She is way too old to be feeling this light. I suspect she is getting sick and will die soon but if she is healthy I have to say I do not like slow white broilers at all. She has had Dual Purpose slow growth and never go big enough to process. If I do another White Bird again it will be Robust White from Moyers. I also want to try the Royal Red (or grey for that matter) so if I order Specialty broilers again for breeding I am getting them from Moyers.