I had a dummy egg in there for almost a week & my other hen laid with it once I got an actual box up. I might try moving the egg thing thoughMine laid her first egg on the floor of the chicken house. The next egg was in the wooden nesting box filled with shavings in amongst the bantam buff brahma eggs. It helps to have dummy eggs or put her egg in the nesting box to teach her
think they are nuts, that dont sound big at all to me, maybe a touch on the silver, but not enough to get fussy about. Thing the feather quality may be something they arent use to seeing is all. A good puffy bird looks bigger than it is. Just like my ohiki, they look big til you pick them up and see they are d'anver body sized.....
oh any time. I try to check on here every day, but this time of year it gets hard too. But I always answer questions every day. Glad to help everyone. It's the best way to promote the breed after all. Yep though, 50-100 gets to cut into your day after a while haha. Uusually takes me 2-4 hours a day to answer everyone.. got to love it I guess...Audrey, 50-100 emails a day?!!I feel honored that you have been taking the time to respond to mine
Something I have found that works great for producing fat, vigorous chicks and keeps them from getting pasty butt is a 7 whole grain cereal (Bob's Red Mill 7 grain hot cereal) I buy at the health food store. It is finely ground, which works great for the bantam chicks. It contains, wheat, Rye, triticale, oats, oat bran, barley, brown rice and flax seed. I sprinkle it on Purina Flock Raiser that I crush for the babies. Of course I only hatch a small volume of chicks each year, so I can afford to spoil them. Oh, and I also buy alfalfa leaf tea from the health food store and sprinkle it on their food. Alfalfa is very rich in vitamins
I have seen more interest in the d'Anvers in Northern California lately. Especially for 4Hers since they are so easy to handle. I fell in love with them when I saw them for the first time at our biggest, yearly poultry show in Stockton, California. I only saw the quail color though. When I went searching out breeders and saw Audrey's website with all those colors I new I just had to have someI had already purchased porcelain d'Anver eggs from a BYCer, having a very poor hatch of 3 out of 12 eggs with one being a star gazer which luckily I was able to save since it was my only pullet and a real sweet bird
I kept the better of the two roosters and the pullet and hope to add more porcelains from Audrey's stock
In the mean time I couldn't resist some of the other beautiful colors Audrey has produced and hopefully soon I will have some hatching eggs coming
I think that once you have some d'Anvers it becomes obvious, like Audrey said, they are hard to beat!
Quite a few d'Anver roosters are "ankle dusters".
I think he will do well, don't see too many porcelains at shows. The mottled colors are hard to get ones that match the standard, unlike some of the solid colors.
