I hate losing birds for no apparent reason. And why must it almost always be a girl? When you hatch a roo or three for every female, the female loss impacts that much more. Of course, there are soooo many more things that go wrong with young pullets, though. Their lives are more complicated.
I hatched some cuties (3 millies & 1 black) over the weekend, and this morning was greeted by my first Goldneck of 2011. My GN pullet is showing really well despite too much white on her (IMO). In fact, all my girls kicked the boys butts at the show last weekend. Cracked me up! Guess I need to breed some better boys. Sadly, I have a HECKUVA lot of them to choose from this spring, due to a 3/1 ratio of males over females in my hatchlings.
I now have a dedicated roo pen, where all but the millie cockerels are growing out. The millies are getting preferential treatment since I have so few of them still. And even though I hatch a few more each week, I hate to let my half-grown cockerels go for sale yet. What if these first ones are the prettiest ones? Decision decisions.
Am I the only one who agonizes almost daily over who to keep and who to sell?