d'anver lovers,discuss the breed and post some pics!

[LavenderCrow]

Sadly must report that I've lost two d'anver pullets since Sunday. The first was completely my fault... I set the feeder on the poor thing. Then I lost one last night. It looks like the others trampled the poor thing while they were trying to keep warm. I cleaned out the coop (which, for some unknown reason, everything was frozen. We have awesome ventilation so I'm confused how even just clumps of straw are being frozen together...) added over half a bale of straw and am now praying for the best. Any suggestions to keep my little ones warm?

 

[TeaChick]

Sadly must report that I've lost two d'anver pullets since Sunday. The first was completely my fault... I set the feeder on the poor thing. Then I lost one last night. It looks like the others trampled the poor thing while they were trying to keep warm. I cleaned out the coop (which, for some unknown reason, everything was frozen. We have awesome ventilation so I'm confused how even just clumps of straw are being frozen together...) added over half a bale of straw and am now praying for the best. Any suggestions to keep my little ones warm?

I'm sorry for your loss!

We have one chick from the set that are two and a half months old that still has fuzz on her head. She's the only one who's not completely feathered out just yet. And she's the only reason we've been running the heat lamp when the temp is going to be below 45. If it warms up above that at night, then we'll stop using the lamp altogether, but....that's what we use for heat. We put dried leaves and pine straw in the bottom of the coop and put on the light. It's like Club Red in there. lol

 

[LavenderCrow]

Thanks! We've not lost anyone again yet. We almost lost a silly blue (ironically, the last one, since the other two were the blues) pullet who go out and wouldn't go back in. I'm sad I lost them, but I'm glad that it wasn't my porcelains, especially since my rooster is turning out to be such a pretty boy! They're so friendly.

 

[TeaChick]

 

[speckledhen]

For the sake of trying to breathe life into this thread, I wasn 't getting any eggs for a few weeks and weeks before that, only my porcelain hen was laying. Suddenly, today, I got THREE D'Anver eggs at once! You know what that means with this crew....cluck, cluck, cluck, SCREECH, flare, cluck, cluck...well, you get the picture. Mine are worse than any Silkie.

Aubrey, my original three hens and little Aubrey turn 4 years old in April. I still have Spike, too. So, I have 7 hens and 2 roosters left.

 

[chickee]

My girls have been laying steadily. I might even try hatching some eggs from them for the NYD hatch-a-long. I sure would like to hatch some more solid khakis. Really curious to see what the roosters would look like since I only have hatched the one pullet.

My new chicken house is close to being done. Still need to side it, make the roof vent, put power in and panel the feed room. The d'Anvers and Silkies are enjoying living it until their new pen is done. Then the Ameraucanas and golden cuckoo Marans get to move in. The d"anvers are going to love their new larger pen that will be split into two 6x7 ft. runs. The roof is 10 ft. at the peak and I plan to put in some high up roosts for them to play on.

 

[speckledhen]

Glad you are close to completion on that project, chickee! Feels good when it's all done and functioning as you imagined.

 

[Backwoods Bntms]

Cynthia, how are you doing? I haven't been on much. I cut way back on my d'Anvers so I would have room and money to work on the Watermaals. I still have about 2 dozen, most of them moved to Georgia this fall. Glad to hear your birds are doing well. I still check all the new post's just don't say much.

 

[speckledhen]

Cynthia, how are you doing? I haven't been on much. I cut way back on my d'Anvers so I would have room and money to work on the Watermaals. I still have about 2 dozen, most of them moved to Georgia this fall. Glad to hear your birds are doing well. I still check all the new post's just don't say much.

Doing fine, JJ, staying busy. Someone in GA has your D'Anvers? Do I know this person? It isn't Aubrey, is it? Good to see you post! Miss talking with you.

Was working on stuff for a show that Ladyhawk is doing for our company in a week or so, but I mailed the box to her a few days ago so done with that. We acquired a cat who wandered in and decided to stay. Of course, he wasn't neutered so took care of that. We aren't really cat people, but he's really good, doesn't bother the chickens at all and most of them are getting used to him now, plus he may be a rodent deterrent to some degree. Can't hurt, right? Named him Finn and even my husband, the self avowed cat hater, likes him a lot.

The winter we thought would be really bad hasn't materialized just yet, though we had some very cold nights. Poor old Isaac, who suffers from arthritis and bad circulation in his legs, periodically falls off the roost. Makes me really glad I have that baby monitor in the main coop so he doesn't spend a frigid night on the floor and get frostbite. He lost two toe ends last winter from doing that when it was near zero degrees.

I've lost about 8 hens this year, but not all were the oldest ones (except for big red Meg who was almost 8); had to buy eggs twice but now everyone is coming back into production. I have some 7 and 8 year old laying right now. Old gals just keep on trucking.

 

[LavenderCrow]

Just bought some lovely Lavender Cuckoo D'anvers today! So excited. Of course, I have a question. I have porcelains d'anvers, and I was wondering if what would I bred the lavender cuckoo to porcelain? Would I get lavender, lavender barred, mottled, porcelain? My goal is to get some purely lavender birds out of it, but I don't know how