I finally sold my last excess Jubilee Orpington cockerel (8 months old) today. He was a good boy, very nice with my girls, but not the best one to keep for breeding. I had bought 5 chicks last spring and 4 turned out to be cockerels. Sigh. I did keep two gorgeous boys, though. Even though I lost money, as one almost always does when selling cockerels and roos by themselves, getting some money was much better than getting no money and worrying about him winding up as cockfighting bait.
I still have four sweet and handsome black/lav split cockerels that are just 3 months old. I hatched 7, only got 2 pullets. Sigh again. I'm only keeping one of these boys for my lavender program, but if you are looking for an outcross or wanting to get into lavenders, please PM me. These guys will go to freezer camp if I can't find them new homes. I will consider any offer short of free. They have been vaccinated against Marek's, which cost me $3 per chick, but I think it's important. I was fortunate not to have to spend a lot for the hatching eggs. I don't think the gentleman who sold them to me realized how good his birds were. The larger of the two black roos in the breeding pen was the size of a female Labrador retriever! Tons of amazing plumage on top of very large bodies, and his lavender hens were also good sized with stout, round bodies. I can't wait to breed these splits to my March hatched lavs next year!
Switching subjects, I had only one mild case of frostbite last year in a hen that was lowest ranking and not allowed to stay in the henhouse. She wound up living in our garage, but not before she got just a little frostbite (small grey spot) which healed perfectly on its own, as Leahs Mom noted with hers. If the tissue is just discolored, I recommend leaving it alone. I am not a believer in Vaseline. We have open waterers with about 2" width of water exposed in a ring. Last year, we did use a heat lamp in the henhouse when the temperatures were 15 or below, or 20 and really windy. I know that's controversial, just wanted to make full disclosure. Our coop is mostly open hardware cloth, with an enclosed henhouse that has excellent ventilation from the floor opening to the ceiling, which has an open gap of about 6" between the hardware cloth ceiling and the roof. We use the "deep litter" method in the winter. In fact, today was our last major cleaning until it starts to warm up again. We just keep adding additional straw as the girls smash it down, and letting the poop slowly degrade, which also creates a little extra heat. We also add more straw to the coop floor (dirt) so they can snuggle down into it. This is our first winter with roos, so I will be on the lookout for frostbite. The roos apartments are scaled down versions of the henhouse, with the same ventilation and solid walls.
My Jubilee pullets will NOT go into the henhouse at night, so I have been letting them roost overnight in the open coop. I figure that if it gets cold/windy enough, they will go inside with the other girls. However, if you have never seen the plumage on English Orpingtons, they have about twice as much feather volume as an American Orpington, so I am not as worried about them except combs and feet. Fortunately, they have small combs/wattles. They really hunker down and seem to get their feet covered well, too. As for the one Australorp with frostbite from last year, she is still the bottom girl, but she sleeps inside a nest box now, so I don't think the other girls will bully her out of there this year. Poor thing has no feathers on her rump and no tail at all. She is wearing a winter weight butterfly saddle that helps keep her back and shoulders protected. I recommend butterfly saddles if you have any girls that still have thin spots from either molting, breeding, or being picked on. Louise's Country Closet makes great ones at a very reasonable price, ships them free, and you can usually Google to find a 10% off cou pon code. The website is
http://www.louisescountrycloset.com/butterfly-saddles/ . There are also smaller regular saddles, but they aren't "padded" and don't last nearly as long. For the additional $1.50, I just always buy the heavier weight, larger coverage butterfly saddles.
