INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[JanetMarie]

Look what I saw walking through the house today:
View attachment 1113914
Then when I went outside, I noticed that DD's other silkie was dyed blue! (sidewalk chalk) Poor birds.

DD really spoils them, though. She's always doing chicken chores 1-handed because the other arm is holding a silkie. When she had a sleep-over the other day, the silly silkie stood outside the run cried for DD. Silkie wasn't used to walking into the coop & wanted to be carried.

Absolutely adorable!

 

[Dayrel]

Just want to make sure that the right people are aware of this:

Free chick feed- Indianapolis

 

[Faraday40]

DS's SS chicken, Chizzy, has healed but looks very weird. I feel that her remaining comb may fall off if she has another incident. DS cried for days out of sympathy for his pretty pullet, but through it all Chizzy laid an egg almost daily. She's a tough bird and now has the looks to prove it.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I missed what happened to her?

 

[Faraday40]

I missed what happened to her?

a young cock in love.....

I came pretty close to having chicken dinner that night.

 

[Indyshent]

The following info may or may not influence whice of the guys I keep here:

Now that most of the birds have found new homes, I've been steadily working toward flock integration with momma OE and the ever-growing brood. Bowie will periodically take offense at the chicks and peck some of them. He's never drawn blood, but he will get the whole broody posse squealing. Is he being the disciplinarian dad and just enforcing pecking order with the bitties, and should I be concerned? Optimus leaves them alone.

The guys have been surprisingly chill about the changes. They're not even crowing as often as I'd expected. Nobody's tried raping the broodies or going after the ducks. No fights about anything. They seem kinda quiet and thoughtful, if a bit bored and lonely. No aggression or being forward to the broodies--on or off the nests.

A few more chicks have hatched out. They're pretty much all white with a couple dark spots in random locations, or they're black. One of the black ones has some gold on its face. The two blue chicks were bought Monday, which was kinda sad. None have hatched with the crested top hat yet.

Thinking of keeping both roosters though. Optimus is great for helping darken eggs and give EE a more stately appearance, imho. He's one gorgeous mutt. Was kind of hoping to use him to make an autosexing blue barred or a blue laced something, but mostly, I just want to hang onto him because he's a great rooster who's presented absolutely no problems, from a nice line of problem-free birds.

. I'd hoped to use Bowie in a silver laced Leghorn type project. He has more Sebright lacing, generally placid and friendly manners with people and hens, has a funny little suburbia-friendly crow, good carriage, great feed efficiency and possibly even good egg production genes (Polish are hit and miss on that any more).

 

[Indyshent]

DS's SS chicken, Chizzy, has healed but looks very weird. I feel that her remaining comb may fall off if she has another incident. DS cried for days out of sympathy for his pretty pullet, but through it all Chizzy laid an egg almost daily. She's a tough bird and now has the looks to prove it.

Aww, poor girl. I had a Pekin drake nearly blind a mallard hen earlier this year. My advice is to always side on "Dinner". There will always be too many boys out there and too few chicken dinners.

 

[Nyla]

So here is my quail racking system lay-out. Each rack holds 6 cages. Each cage will have 10 females and 2 males totaling to 60 females and 12 males per rack. So I'm ruffly estimating about 50 eggs give or take a day from each cage.
I'm thinking about doing a Bulk sale of 320+ eggs Assortment basically every egg I collect the day of shipping for $300 with free shipping. That would be 40+ of each types of quails listed on the lay-out. Also I plan on buying foam egg shipper's for best shipping!
Anyone have comments or suggestions? Would love your option on prices!
Also I don't have all all listed yet but I'm hatching them currently and constantly buying more eggs to hatch for more bloodlines so no interbreeding!
Also this is not in full operation! This probably won't happen till around Spring!

 

[Indyshent]

I've heard some debate concerning rose comb genetics for a few years now and finally found some proof (while actually looking for something other than the Batesian/Mendelian comb genetic. *sigh*) that rose comb boys actually do have decreased fertility. A number of people have argued that they didn't, with breeders being divided seemingly everywhere. Well, it turns out that boys with two copies of rose comb allele actually are less fertile and are fertile for shorter times.I like the rose comb look, but I don't think forming a new rose comb breed or variation of an existing breed would actually be a good idea.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386170/

I did find out that both of my boys carry at least one duplex comb gene. Bowie has two copies of dominant Dv, and Optimus has one copy, but it could be from either Dv (V comb) or Dc (Buttercup). V is dominant over Buttercup, but either will express over other single comb types. So, I'll possibly wind up with duplex project babies, but as duplex combs are pretty cool looking and neither of these boys is at risk of frostbite, I'll take my chances. Unlike rose comb genes, duplex doesn't seem to have any detrimental effects--but it does increase nostril size, which actually helps keep the sinuses clear!

In other news, a couple more babies hatched, and one's lavender! Pretty sure it's lavender Ameraucana over black (split lav, apparently) something or other. I've had one hen who looked like she might have had lavender genes, but it couldn't be hers because it's got feathered feet. Plus, she had a nice salmon breast, so I don't think she had lavender anyway. Feathered legs could've only come from the bkack mottled Breda or the two Brahma mixes. Maybe it's a light blue instead of lavender, but I'm not sure how to tell lavender from light blue then...

 

[Indyshent]

Craigslist finds

Peacocks--bronze and white on super sale for $75
https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/peacocks/6272090820.html

Free silkie and silkie mix roosters https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/free-rooster/6271437702.html

Call ducks https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/white-call-ducklings-hard-to/6271330168.html

Turkey poults https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/white-call-ducklings-hard-to/6271330168.html

Laying hens $10/each https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/laying-hens/6271227457.html

OE pullets https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/pullets-olive-eggers/6261909483.html

Rooster https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/d/rooster-for-sale/6270387764.html