Hatching Eggs / Paypal CHAT Thread

[cluckitall]

What is the best material to put in a coop for heat? pine/aspen shavings, hay, straw or something else? ...or does it matter as long as there is plenty of it?

I don't know! When it's really cold, I throw down an armful of straw for them to burrow into if they want

Anybody?

 

[Brookhavens]

I feed starter to the babies and then they go to Nutrena All Flock (22%) and that is where everyone stays. The exception, I feed turkey/gamebird to the turkeys & the quail.

Deb

I feed the exact same thing. Plus the girls get oyster shell. Everyone gets fresh veggies depending on what's on sale at the time.Our feed store sells smaller bags of the gamebird feed. Thank goodness because I could not see buying a 50 lb. bag for 5 quail.

 

[madamwlf]

I thought lettuce was "zero food?" I thought there wasn't anything good/nutritious in it for them... but I don't have any sources to back this up, so I'll shut up now

Iceberg lettuce is zero food but not kale, romaine lettuce or anything dark and leafy.

 

[gabrielle1976]

Ice burg lettuce dosnt have much but water in it ,
Other types like greenleaf and redleaf ect do have vitemins ect

 

[Brookhavens]

do I want to admit it but I pay $28 per bag for organic layer feed and scratch. (ducks head and hides) hey...it's a local company and I like to support local!

I wish I could get organic feed here. I have searched for awhile and still haven't found any place that sells it. I hate the fact that almost all the soy that is used is GMO.

 

[chiqita]

I thought lettuce was "zero food?" I thought there wasn't anything good/nutritious in it for them... but I don't have any sources to back this up, so I'll shut up now

AS someone else said, that is iceberg lettuce. The darker the green, the more micro nutrients there are in it as a rule of thumb. But they seem to like vegetable matter more then us, and can probably digest iceberg better then us anyway. My girls eat a TON of grass and keep my lawn trimmed. This of course means we have to stay completely organic for the lawn, but its not terribly hard. I plan to turn what used to be the garden into lawn this winter, just not enough sun there to grow stuff and the chickens will have a ball if I can get clover going. I know if we were eating that much grass we would have issues, so they must be better at getting stuff out of it.

What are you feeding those birds

Our base food is pheasant feed " natural" from Kings feed a local company. They don't do organic on the higher protein. But not every feed store has it, and my big girls like to throw crumbles around and waste it . and don't talk about what the silkies do with that stuff! So I get pellets as well, they are hard to find over 22%. I usually offer both feeds and they will eat both. Now its between 22 -24 /50lbs. It went down to 17 and up to 25. We also grow black Soldier Flies and feed them to the girls as a protein supplement, but even in summer when we can get 8-10 cups a day they still eat reg food.

We went for local as having less environmental impact then organic. Kings also uses spent grain so there is some brewers yeast in there and less soy. In fact it might be soy free, i don't remember. But I like higher protein as an option since they snack on so much grass and ruffage. But I think the DH would ahve a heart attack if I was at 30 a bag for 50, elt alone 20!

Great job on the genetics earlier, I'm taking notes!

 

[pysankigirl]

I have a little black ameraucana who I swear is laying brown eggs. I haven't seperated her out to make sure but I really think she is. I guess **someone** must have gotten busy with the wrong roo. but shouldn't she then be an olive egger? I am so confused.

 

[Sahwithchicks]

I am fairly lucky. I live in the middle of nowhere, but the main town center actually has ace hardware (also feedstore) tractor supply and even Walmart sells (poor quality) chicken feed, and the little country store does too. I wish the country store sold unmediated chick starter, but there's is medicated so I can't feed it to the quail

 

[debs_flock]

do I want to admit it but I pay $28 per bag for organic layer feed and scratch. (ducks head and hides) hey...it's a local company and I like to support local!

Oooh, that would not work for me. I have close to 300 birds.

Quote:
I buy many 50# bags at a time. I have around 40 quail and 15 HUGE turkeys.

I have a little black ameraucana who I swear is laying brown eggs. I haven't seperated her out to make sure but I really think she is. I guess **someone** must have gotten busy with the wrong roo. but shouldn't she then be an olive egger? I am so confused.

Is she a true Ameraucana or an EE? I don't know if you got her from a breeder or a feedstore (I have one of those). They always label them Ameraucana, but they are really EE's. EE's can lay brown eggs. If she came from a breeder, then I have no answer

Deb

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:

I don't think any of my black hens would be carriers. My Roos offspring would have, but they also all carried the vulture hock, so I didn't deem them worth keeping. I may try to breed my birchen with my black frizzle hen, who is pretty nice type (I think) and see if I can get anythig worth breeding back.

So you think breeding black over barred would lead to sex link? This is where I get super confused with genetics. When people post stuff like bl/BL I really don't know what thu are talking about or how they know it. I also would be interested if anyone knew of a basic book that would give me a clue (a fairly hard thing to do

)

Sexlinking with barred would HAVE to be this way. Solid roo x barred hens. The hens would pass the barring on to the roos ONLY. The pullets should be solid at hatch and the roos would have head spots.

http://kippenjungle.nl/basisEN.htm

http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations1.html

http://www.poultryhelp.com/link-genetics.html

http://kippenjungle.nl/sellers/page0.html

That should give you some good links to read to get your feet wet.

I love it when you guys talk genetics. It's like a mini lesson (if I can follow along!) on something I am very unknowledgeable about! So, allow me to ask this... If I where to take blue and silver laced Cochins, could I get silver laced blues? I mean, it seems to me like uou could, along with basic blue genetics- BBS... But I haven't seen any silver laced blues so I figured I would be tring to breed the wrong genes or something.

Ijust gave away all my cochin chicks. I am going to have to get a different birchen rooster since he has the vulture hocks, I was just hoping he would throw a non vultures birchen, but hasn't.
I have culled of half my flock. It appeases my husband for now, until he realizes I'm only doing it to make room for better breeders

Yes that would give you 50/50 blue and black but it would take a few generations to get the lacing nice again.

Also another genetics question.
I bought black Cochins to breed with the birchen, which has resulted in mostly birchen offspring. I was told bu a couple people on here that wasn't possible, but obviously it is. If you where to breed barred with black, would you get a 50% chance of more barred?

I am trying to plan for which birds I am going to focus on. I figure if that rule holds true, I could get a balck rooster, and have him cover a variety of hens and still breed true.

I would think it would take several generations to get the birchen look up to snuff again. You chicks would carry some of the genes the first gen, then you would need to breed those back to the birchen, untill you get the look again.