If you are interested in buying any
Brinsea incubators or products, right now Rakuten.com is offering $120 for new credit card applicants who are approved. We bought two Octagon 20's (DH got one and I got one) for free. Can't get that. For $120, you can get even more (I think we signed up when the promo was $80.)
Sorry I have not been on much lately. Between my health (pure crap) and dealing with the rescues from next door, I have been worn out, and not online much except to check important things like email.
I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but all our of Bielefelder pullets appear to be laying (we had 5 of 6 lay in a single day). They are saving our bacon right now. We let our girls molt naturally this year and it just destroyed our egg production, and it is NOT coming back, so I figure we have to just get by on less from the young pullets until Jan or Feb. We only have a few adult hens laying, and are still waiting for a bunch of Orp pullets to get a move on! We have 6 or 7 of them that should be ready any time.
Question for the group: I need to do something about my rooster situation. Cog is still living with the adult lavs (who do nothing but eat, thank you very little). The last hen is coming out of her molt slowly but surely, and Cogburn now has a tail again. Anyway, I will need to move my lav cockerel and lav pullets into that pen, and need Cogburn out. Options as I see it: (1) Sell Placido, my Jubilee roo who is gorgeous and very well-mannered, OR (2) crate them alternately in the main (mixed) coop until I need Cogburn again, OR (3) try to introduce Cogburn into the main coop and hope he and Placido figure out how to live peaceably. Cogburn and Placido have lived separated by nothing more than hardware cloth their entire lives, but they are fully mature and haven't shared space since they were young cockerels. I'd prefer to be able to keep them together in the mixed (non-breeder) flock. Has anyone done this successfully (or otherwise)? Suggestions? I have three Jubilee hens left but want to try to make blue Jubilees and improve their genetics. I don't HAVE to have Placido to do that since right now I have two blue cockerels.
For those who may be interested, this is the list of colors/breeds we will have available in 2016 (also hatching eggs for most):
Lavender Orpingtons (1/4 to 1/2 English, the rest hinkjc American)
Black split to lavender Orps (1/2 English, rest hinkjc American) ON DEMAND ONLY
Blue Orpingtons (full English)
Black Orpingtons (full English)
Splash Orpingtons (full English)
Chocolate Cuckoo Orpingtons (full English)
Black Cuckoo Orpingtons (full English)
Chocolate Orpingtons (full English)
Jubilee Orpingtons (full English) ON DEMAND ONLY (true color, not my project chicks)
Bielefelders (autosexing German breed)
Everything will be sold
straight run except the Bielefelders.
ALSO, we are trying to find a home for our "Orpacauna" cockerel as a flock roo for a barnyard flock. He is black with the most intense beetle green sheen I have ever seen, and should be an olive egger (mom was a green egg layer, and his dad was a lavender Orp). He is breeding and crowing. We'd hoped for a pullet and don't need another roo. His options are either (1) we eat him, or (2) he gets to be a flock roo somewhere else, at least for a while, especially if you are wanting some more colorful eggs. He has a very small comb that should be almost frostbite-proof. I'll try to get a good photo of him. He is bigger than an Ameracauna cockerel, but a lot smaller than an Orp roo.
Hope everybody is OK. We're supposed to go to Louisville for Thanksgiving, but I may not be up to it this year. We just drove to Lexington, KY and back to hear my daughter's last concert as a UK student, and we had to bring the dog with us. Between all that sitting and the dog driving me crazy in a new place, I feel like death warmed over.