INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Nice goat shelter, @jchny2000 !

I assume they will jump on it? Do you have decking underneath the metal roof?

I wish I could get goats. I need them to clear the tons of brambles and P.I. we have in our back field. But I'm just not set up to house them, and its way too far down the list of priorities. Maybe some day.

Thank you! That's a shame, they would sure clean all that up for you. Oh yes, the Oberhasli can get in places that's left me laughing a few times! I've seen them climb lower tree branches lol. And once on top of DHs truck he had left tailgate down, he wasn't too happy. So that extra reinforcement was a have to. I told my brother guaranteed they will be on top of the house. I'm on goat watch tonight, have a 1st freshener ready to kid anytime now, ligaments are gone.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Its after 2am, our doe is sound asleep so I set my alarm for 2 hours. I watch first timers close, some first fresheners will reject kids if the labor/delivery is difficult. I don't interfere unless a baby is misaligned or stuck. I do clear the nose and mouth and put the kid right under the does nose. Most do fine on their own, and last year was a first for me. I had 2 1st time does reject 4 kids last year and bottle fed 4. This year the same does did great. Mocha had a strong kid. Coco's baby was a preemie and didn't survive, no fault of hers. If a kid is born without bottom teeth its likely not going to thrive even with tubing cholestrum.

 

[Finnie]

Frankfort Rural King has Blue Rocks!!

Well, I think I will still like my blue chickens, but I should have known to look them up BEFORE I got excited and bought them, instead of after. Apparently "Plymouth Blue Rocks" are not true Plymouth Rocks. They are a hybrid sex link breed, sometimes called Sapphire Gem.

https://dominant-cz.cz/produkt/dominant-blue-d-107/?lang=en

So it appears they are half Barred Rock and half Blue Andalusian. The good news though, is that since none of mine have a head spot, I probably have all pullets!

It cracks me up when they have a "straight run" bin of a sex-linked breed. I didn't see a single head spot in there. But I did try to feather sex them by their wings, and the first four I picked up (the ones I bought) all looked "pullet" to me. Now I know why!

Oh well, and here I thought actual Blue Rocks were making a comeback.

Maybe I should call the helpful lady at the RK and let her know what I found out.

 

[Finnie]

Its after 2am, our doe is sound asleep so I set my alarm for 2 hours. I watch first timers close, some first fresheners will reject kids if the labor/delivery is difficult. I don't interfere unless a baby is misaligned or stuck. I do clear the nose and mouth and put the kid right under the does nose. Most do fine on their own, and last year was a first for me. I had 2 1st time does reject 4 kids last year and bottle fed 4. This year the same does did great. Mocha had a strong kid. Coco's baby was a preemie and didn't survive, no fault of hers. If a kid is born without bottom teeth its likely not going to thrive even with tubing cholestrum.

You set your alarm for two hours. Are you awake now? Got kids?

 

[Faraday40]

Well, I think I will still like my blue chickens, but I should have known to look them up BEFORE I got excited and bought them, instead of after. Apparently "Plymouth Blue Rocks" are not true Plymouth Rocks. They are a hybrid sex link breed, sometimes called Sapphire Gem.

https://dominant-cz.cz/produkt/dominant-blue-d-107/?lang=en

So it appears they are half Barred Rock and half Blue Andalusian. The good news though, is that since none of mine have a head spot, I probably have all pullets!

It cracks me up when they have a "straight run" bin of a sex-linked breed. I didn't see a single head spot in there. But I did try to feather sex them by their wings, and the first four I picked up (the ones I bought) all looked "pullet" to me. Now I know why!

Oh well, and here I thought actual Blue Rocks were making a comeback.

Maybe I should call the helpful lady at the RK and let her know what I found out.

Perhaps they're not what you expected, but they're very pretty & will lay eggs. Unless you plan to breed them, the pedigree doesn't much. Blue chickens are beautiful. Congrats on the great find!

Last year I saw a bin of "black sex links" and every one had a head spot. So did some person in the know pick out all the females or did the store mislabel their barred rocks?

 

[Faraday40]

Tillie met her adoring fans this morning. Teddy, Xansie, & Xansie's last chick also came along to school. (Thankfully my flock is very used to camera flashes. LOL) The school assembly went well, and we'll repeat it again later this afternoon. DD helped bring the chickens around so the kids could pet them. I even brought my chicken dance toy hen for a little added fun. Since the schools are helping DS with his 4H poultry sci project (comparing incubators), he's going to leave his school a little early to help out with the afternoon presentation.

Tomorrow DS's school will have a "ribbon cutting" ceremony as the Agriculture Club presents their 1st school chicken coop. (I'm sure you can guess who supplied and helped hatch the chickens.....) I'm glad to see that our suburban community continues to teach kids where food comes from. A big part of that is due to some dedicated teachers who apply & earn grants to bring Ag into the classrooms.

 

[Finnie]

Perhaps they're not what you expected, but they're very pretty & will lay eggs. Unless you plan to breed them, the pedigree doesn't much. Blue chickens are beautiful. Congrats on the great find!

Last year I saw a bin of "black sex links" and every one had a head spot. So did some person in the know pick out all the females or did the store mislabel their barred rocks?

Well I had thought if I was getting straight run, I would breed them. I love (real) rocks, and I know the blues are harder to come by. When the lady on the phone said they had a special breed in, I thought it was my lucky day!

But you are right, they will be super egg layers that are pretty. So I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out. That's my problem with all the chicks. I want to grow them all out to laying age before I sell any. Can't really do that with ALL of them!

 

[Finnie]

Last chick is out of its egg! 100% hatch rate!! I'm so stoked!

5 turkeys and 8 chickens.

5 of the C's are from white eggs, which means their mothers are either my 2 Spitz or my 1 Brown Leghorn.

These are from the smaller eggs, there are 3 of them. Probably Spitz crosses?

And there are 2 like this from the larger white eggs, so I guess they must be BL crosses:

The photo doesn't do it justice, but they have black bodies with the most gorgeous dark-mink brown heads. (I already named them Mink and Sable. )

I'll get better photos later once the last chick dries out.

 

[oldrooster]

Perhaps they're not what you expected, but they're very pretty & will lay eggs. Unless you plan to breed them, the pedigree doesn't much. Blue chickens are beautiful. Congrats on the great find!

Last year I saw a bin of "black sex links" and every one had a head spot. So did some person in the know pick out all the females or did the store mislabel their barred rocks?

A few years ago our tractor supply had a bin of straight run sex link chicks, forgive me I cannot remember right now if it was red or black I posted here on BYC sometime after seeing it. It looked picked over 3 or 4 marked one way all the others were the opposite gender and it was a fairly large quantity of the one gender, forgive me the details but I remember I was not certain of the "code" at the time to tell what was what and I was really in shock that they would get a sex link in as straight run, because of the likely hood of someone looking it up on a smart phone, or going home and coming back later and saying I want this one that one etc etc etc and leaving a bin full of males and someone ignorant picking the males unknowingly and getting worked over...

 

[Faraday40]

I was invited to a ribbon cutting ceremony for a chicken coop at DS's school today.
(He's part of the "Agriculture club" and has been telling others all about the benefits of keeping chickens since preschool.) They've been hatching my eggs for 4-5 years now, and this year received funding grants to buy a little coop for their school.

The chicks were hatched in early March and will move into the coop next week. (The pullets didn't attend the ceremony today due to their fear of large crowds and public speaking. LOL) DS was a little nervous about speaking in front of 400 people (mostly students) but he did fine..... and of course the megaphone helped.

The Ag Club kids will take turns caring for the chickens until the end of the year, and the chickens will return in the fall for next year's Ag Club to continue. DS is so excited to be the 1st student scheduled to care for them. Before signing the permission slip I kept asking him, "After doing all your chicken chores at home, are you sure you want to go to school and clean another chicken coop?" He answered that it's an honor and a privilege to care for the school chickens. I almost fell over!