INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

My Bresse are starting to lay! Tiny pullet eggs so far. I want to avoid the Cornish Cross going forward. The fellas are huge so I see promise in the Bresse. My 6 Mabel girls lol barred rock are doing awesome expect eggs anytime soon.
We have finally bought a plucker for processing. Amazon deal $120 off so I am going to dispatch about 12 roosters tomorrow.

 

[pginsber]

Our cream legbar hen, our only blue egg layer, is 6 years old now, so we hatched out some eggs to try to get new blue eggs in our basket. We have an Aracauna roo (blue egg gene), so we were very hopeful.

Out of 10 eggs, 4 candeled positive day 7 and again on day 14. Went into lockdown, 3 hatched, one dead in shell. Two weeks later, our favorite chick, the runt, died. Super sad as she had double tufts, was rumpless, and nacked neck feathering pattern.

Anyway, the same week she died, one of the 2 week old chicks started to crow. That was almost as sad for us. The remaining two are now 4 weeks old. Here's there current baby pics:

The roo is on the left is Sully and Loretta, hopefully female is on the right.

Sully is a Silver duckwing Aracauna roo over a Norwegian Jaerhon hen. He's just adorable! He's partially rumpless like his dad and has the Aracauna comb, but has the coloring and small stature of his mom. I can't wait to see him grow up! He'll be looking for a home in the near future. He should grow to about 5 pounds.

Loretta is a Silver duckwing Aracauna roo over a buff Naked Neck. She's got daddy's slate legs, blue egg gene, and rumpless, and has her mother's feather pattern and temperament. She purrs/chortles when you pet her. I just LOVE naked necks!! Her mom lays a large terra cotta egg, so I'm very curious to see what color Loretta's eggs will be. Stay tuned!

 

[Leahs Mom]

It WILL be fun to see how she turns out!

And...that crow is amazing! Puts a smile on your face

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Our cream legbar hen, our only blue egg layer, is 6 years old now, so we hatched out some eggs to try to get new blue eggs in our basket. We have an Aracauna roo (blue egg gene), so we were very hopeful.

Out of 10 eggs, 4 candeled positive day 7 and again on day 14. Went into lockdown, 3 hatched, one dead in shell. Two weeks later, our favorite chick, the runt, died. Super sad as she had double tufts, was rumpless, and nacked neck feathering pattern.

Anyway, the same week she died, one of the 2 week old chicks started to crow. That was almost as sad for us. The remaining two are now 4 weeks old. Here's there current baby pics:

View attachment 1878633
The roo is on the left is Sully and Loretta, hopefully female is on the right.

View attachment 1878637
Sully is a Silver duckwing Aracauna roo over a Norwegian Jaerhon hen. He's just adorable! He's partially rumpless like his dad and has the Aracauna comb, but has the coloring and small stature of his mom. I can't wait to see him grow up! He'll be looking for a home in the near future. He should grow to about 5 pounds.

View attachment 1878639
Loretta is a Silver duckwing Aracauna roo over a buff Naked Neck. She's got daddy's slate legs, blue egg gene, and rumpless, and has her mother's feather pattern and temperament. She purrs/chortles when you pet her. I just LOVE naked necks!! Her mom lays a large terra cotta egg, so I'm very curious to see what color Loretta's eggs will be. Stay tuned!

Loved the crow! Sully is too adorable. Loretta is just gorgeous NN are a fun bird. The hens are so friendly, I've only had one mean fella (was not raised here). Sorry to hear about your losses.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Plucker did awesome! Most of the roosters were 6 months or older so I will pressure cook or grind. Some will be frozen for stock also. There will be another round coming up a few Bresse & EE. Almost all our young pullets are laying now pretty happy about that!

Coco our 2nd oldest Oberhasli is very pregnant. This was an unplanned breeding and I'm nervous about it because the sire is the Nubian buck. He was the only fella in with the girls at the time. Normally I remove the bucks well before the does kid, but life events it didn't happen early enough. He is a yearling so I'm hoping for smaller kids. Coco rejected her twins last year. This year had a preemie early march that didn't thrive. Great milker, sweet doe I just adore her.. but I want her to mother her kids too. I'm estimating her due date around 9/6. If anyone is interested in the kid/kids pm me. I try to stay with purebred for my nieces in 4H and someday our grandson.

 

[Faraday40]

Yesterday's microcell storm knocked out our power from 6:30am - 9:15pm. We also discovered that our generator no longer works. Thankfully our neighbor let us plug into his generator to keep the pump going. Only a little flooding. No power, no internet, no phones, no screens meant kids had to play outside (once it dried up). Nice to see all the neighborhood teens playing ball together.

So guess what else happened? My computer got fried. DH will try to replace the power supply later today, so I'm on my kids' screen right now. If it doesn't work, I guess he's building me a new one & I'll find out how good our back up system works. If I'm not online much, you'll know why.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@Faraday40
Hope things get fixed soon!

 

[Leahs Mom]

@jchny2000
Too bad it's not early spring. One of those kids would be very tempting for me in spring...

 

[pginsber]

Well, I'm not exactly sure what possessed me, but we stuck 11 more eggs in the incubator last weekend. I believe I was trying to get some chicks from our cream legbar hen, but don't quote me on that because it could just be chicken math!

Candeled the eggs at day 10. Those darn Aracauna butts making it hard to get the job done! Only 1 egg was developed. OUT OF 11 EGGS!

The 2 other chicks that hatched previously are now 5 weeks old. How am I going to raise ONE CHICK? In 10 more days, when the egg hatches, I'll have moved the two other chicks to a different, larger grow out pen. One lone chick will be miserable by itself!!

I thought about setting more eggs in the incubator, but the low fertilization percentage doesn't guarantee any others I set will develop. Best case in that scenario is that the one would still be alone for 10 days.

Guess I'll be making a trip to tractor supply or somewhere to see if they've got any chicks left.

 

[pginsber]

Anyone have chicks expected to hatch around next weekend?