Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[karimw]

Oh dear thats nasty ottojumper, I'm surprised it's affecting your older birds, but I know there are some wicked strains out there.

 

[ottbjumper06]

Save the one pullet, its affected only older birds, but being as all my younger stock is on medicated feed this may be the explanation. We'll see I guess.

 

[mrandmrschicken]

If you have Sulmet, use it at once in the water! The chicks may have cocci, but this will get them through it. The bad weather could explain the loss in the older birds, beyond 6 mos. Warm one day and cold the next. They need (like we all need) more warm sunny days to hang out and clear out their lungs. I might also suggest giving them vitamins in their water like ... Nutri-drench, to boost the vitamin D.

 

[ottbjumper06]

Thanks for the suggestion Eric. Things are either slowing down finally, or its the calm before the storm lol, too early to tell just yet.

How are everyone's breeding pens going this year so far?

 

[Candy442]

Thanks for the suggestion Eric. Things are either slowing down finally, or its the calm before the storm lol, too early to tell just yet.

How are everyone's breeding pens going this year so far?

Brett and I just got back from vacation on the ocean

We will be posting photos of our two smoky, one birchen, and one "charcoal". There is one cockerel of the smoky, and the only other cockerel that hatched was the DelaIowa cross. He is looking pretty stunning so far. The other DelaIowa is a pullet and she looks very similar to the smoky pullet.

We are separating the Iowa's from the others to get hatching eggs for June hatch to see what we get out of the three pullets and one "silver" cockerel. No doubts on who the father was for the next hatch

How is everyone else doing?

I am interested in joining the "promotion/show" committee in the Iowa Club if anyone has info on that. We have a show in October in Birch Run that would be nice to have a display of Iowas for the Michigan folks and anyone else that would like to travel.

Are there attendees from this thread to Avoca this weekend?

 

[karimw]

Eric is going to Avoca (mrandmrschicken) but I can not. Too much going on with school and getting the garden in.

I am hatching weekly with no end in sight. Lots of people looking for these birds! Provided they arrive safely today, there will be now be Iowa Blues installed at the Montauk Historic site in Clermont. Hopefully that will be a good home for them!

http://montaukiowa.com/index.htm

 

[ottbjumper06]

That's great Kari!
My original intentions were to make it to Avoca with some of my birds, but with them just now getting over what turned out to be a respiratory infection it's a better idea if I just stay home. In reality I probably won't be making more than 4-5 shows this year with the schedule that I have. Let us know how it goes Eric .

I have a six month old pullet from Denny that just started to lay this week, and she definitely has more filling out to do, but she has red ear lobes and slate legs that I've been working on getting control over. Still also fighting with AR in some of my cockerels, but it's workable!

 

[Candy442]

Eric is going to Avoca (mrandmrschicken) but I can not. Too much going on with school and getting the garden in.

I am hatching weekly with no end in sight. Lots of people looking for these birds! Provided they arrive safely today, there will be now be Iowa Blues installed at the Montauk Historic site in Clermont. Hopefully that will be a good home for them!

http://montaukiowa.com/index.htm

What a nice link! It looks like a great home for them

. Are you hatching for orders or just to add to your breeding program?

 

[karimw]

This is my first year shipping chicks and so far it's going well. I set about 50 a week and that gives me enough to ship an order of 20 - 25 and leave a few for local pick up. I NEED to be more stingy for my own breeding program! I hate making people wait too long. I really need a big incubator. My reptipro 6000 holds about 100 eggs double stacked, but hand turning that many twice a day is pain.

 

[karimw]

That's great Kari!
My original intentions were to make it to Avoca with some of my birds, but with them just now getting over what turned out to be a respiratory infection it's a better idea if I just stay home. In reality I probably won't be making more than 4-5 shows this year with the schedule that I have. Let us know how it goes Eric

.

I have a six month old pullet from Denny that just started to lay this week, and she definitely has more filling out to do, but she has red ear lobes and slate legs that I've been working on getting control over. Still also fighting with AR in some of my cockerels, but it's workable!

I'm anxious to see if I made any improvements with the AR. I was doing pretty well, but the Sandhill/Johnston lines put it back in, along with whit earlobes.

Of course the birds I got were culls from Denny and Curt, but I was lucky to have them. I need to get pictures of the January hatch. Those girls are starting to show pink in their combs now

The nice thing is there is very little size difference from Sandhill/Johnston stock and my own line crossed with the Johnston cockerels. Except for the Smokey cockerel from Curt's Sandhill hen, he is HUGE compared to the all others.