Hello from Manitoba

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Thanks to everybirdy for the incredible warm welcome to BYC! I badly needed something like this -- I never enjoyed Facebook much and have just about abandoned it since it seems only to become more and more toxic. Yet FB has killed off most of the Yahoo Groups and phpBB forums -- people just won't visit them, they stay on FB no matter how bad it gets or how much its users are abused and exploited by Zuckerberg. I would have left altogether were it not for my large accumulation of images. SO -- it's great to find such an active forum venue as BYC. Long may it thrive. I particularly appreciate the atmosphere of mutual helpfulness, which is so much a contrast to the dog world. I've got a lot to learn about practical poultry keeping and this looks like the place to do just that. Again thanks to all
DobieLover said:
Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
Great introduction.
I'm a little surprised at your descriptions of the dog vs the chicken responses to our interactions with them.
I think my chickens would eat my body if I collapsed in their territory.
I think the lovely gal in my avatar would lay beside me and mourn.
I couldn't imagine watching my pack of geriatric dogs slowly die off one by one. The chickens were a good idea. But it certainly sounds like you will have your fair share of challenges ahead of you. It sounds like a very large, covered run that you can wrap in tarps for the dead of winter are in order. Similar to this. This entire setup sits inside a 1/3 acre pen surrounded by poultry netting powered with a 10,000 volt charger. It keeps the local black bear, coyote, fox, fisher cats, raccoons, etc. at bay.
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Oh, I'm not saying that chooks are all that personally affectionate and aware. Bird awareness is an odd thing. We ought never to forget that basically they are evolved prehistoric reptiles, little dinosaurs at heart. But they do react enthusiastically to most things that are done for them or given them, if those are the correct things.

As to winter digs -- WOW! What a lovely setup in the photo. YES. Something along these lines is obviously in order. I need to think about it, but not for too long because winter's coming even though it's just early June (today brought rain and a COLD westerly wind; I have the wood furnace going tonight -- "global warming," y'know, but personally I say "welcome to the grand solar minimum").

BTW if your name is Tonya, you might enjoy a visit to my website to hear about your namesake -- and to read my elegy to her. My "Tonya" was a very exceptional sleddog, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Here's the home page link: http://www.seppalakennels.com and here's the elegy: http://seppalakennels.com/tonya-elegy.htm
 
It's time for an update after a horrendous sixteen days in which we lost four of our ageing canine population, including two that we were personally very close to, sort of semi-companion dogs. But that same period also has had its upside. Our flock of 20 Buckeye and Berg's Brown youngsters have feathered out a good deal and started to look like real chickens! A couple of the larger Buckeye hens are looking very feminine and attractive now. The Browns remain small and scruffy but they are billed as utility-type free-range layers so I don't expect much from them beyond performance. I bought them as a temporary expedient to get some eggs coming ASAP as well as some meat in the freezer (the cockerels will get the "Sorry, Chicken!" routine this fall).

I've saved the best news for last. After pretty much convincing myself that my bought-in eggs were not developing, on day 17 I bit the bullet and did my clumsy best to candle the lot. (Candling is something about which I feel very apprehensive and have no confidence at all.) I spotted one obvious clear and removed it. The rest looked... well... possible. On the 24th of June one of the White Bresse eggs pipped, then stopped. But twelve hours later, it produced a live chick and then slowly the hatch got under way and acquired momentum. In the end, before the 25th clocked out we had four big Bresse chicks and five diminutive Croad Langshans! (The remaining four eggs never pipped.) I feel so proud it's as if I had sat on the eggs myself -- which I might as well have done as the incubator sat by my bedside for three weeks, its fan moaning and whining in my ear, its turning motor periodically grinding away. I've never in my life seen anything as cute as the Croad Langshan chicks :love-- tiny and reserved, in black and white evening dress they are truly something special.

I bought a Brinsea Eco-Glow brooder and set it up in our basement furnace room where the temperature is pretty stable. Used a sturdy wooden 34" x 44" former whelping box as an enclosure in which to set up the brooder plus a feeder, water etc, with quality wood shavings for litter. The whole affair is raised 3 feet off the floor for convenient tending. I built a hardware-cloth-screened lid for it, to keep them from popping out. They should be perfectly safe and comfy there for at least the first two weeks if not longer. Nine littleuns don't need a whole lot of square footage. After remaining invisible under the brooder for their first 24-36 hours, today they were out exploring their enclosure, the Bresse giving the feeder what for and the CL mostly just observing the scene. By this evening they, too, had the feeder routine worked out. I checked the temp -- if anything it was a shade too warm under the Brinsea despite the cool air of the basement (usually 18-22 Celsius), so I adjusted the legs to raise it somewhat.

So far this first hatch with 14 eggs shipped via Canada Post has greatly exceeded my best expectations. I had hoped Ideally for a trio of each breed -- so with 4 Bresse and 5 gorgeous CL I'm over the moon and hooked, solid. So far so good -- I just hope I can raise them all successfully. The tiny CL look so fragile!

My thanks to Breezybird Farms of Rosenort MB for my beautiful chicks, with eggs very securely packed and expeditiously posted. Great service! To my way of thinking (allowing of course for no previous experience with shipped eggs) I think a 64% hatch rate is probably pretty good going, given that I knew nothing about remediation of disturbed air cells and remain phobic about candling. It helps that no air transport was involved.

Sorry for nattering on so, but I just had to share my joy :weeat the unexpected success of "taking a flyer" on two relatively exotic heritage breeds that I could not have obtained locally.
 
niglefritz said:
I know this is a late welcome, but I am from south of Hamiota, so essentially not that far from you. I have a few heritage breeds and am currently looking for more bielefelder to add to my pair.
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Hey, it's so great to hear from somebirdy that close to us! It gives me hope of actually getting to know some Manitoba poultry people. My sector of the "dog game" was a wasteland here, just too few people with ANY kind of sleddogs and nobody at all that would understand what we were trying to do. Even the Yukon was pretty grim in that respect -- plenty of "mushers" but invariably the attitude was "Hey, when are you gonna get rid of those slow-berians and get yourself some REAL sleddogs?" (Meaning racing crossbreds.) So I spent thirteen years in the Yukon and another thirteen here in Rossburn, all of which time was pretty much a washout as far as collegiality or understanding from others in the same line of animal husbandry. Poultry looks more hopeful. Candace at Breezy Bird Farms was quite helpful, and tomorrow I'm driving down a bit south of Brandon to pick up some SILKIE hatching eggs from a very nice person named Carol who also has two of the breeds I had back in the 1990s in Spain -- Phoenix and Yokohamas. It'll be quite a nostalgia trip for me to see those breeds again.

Good luck looking for more Bielefelder! Candace has them, doesn't she? But maybe that's where you got your first ones and you are looking for another line? What other breeds have you?
 

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