It's Official...

[perchie.girl]

very little pearling is what you want to shoot for in a RP.... I believe

 

[PeepsCA]

All partially-pearled varieties should have flank pearling and barring in the wing feathers, but I've never heard that less flank pearling is more desirable vs more flank pearling, deb. The younger the bird the more flank pearling they have, and depending on where they are before or after molting that also plays a role in how much flank pearling the bird is going to display. Since there is no SOP for any of the partially pearled varieties... it just may be a personal preferences of certain breeders. Personally I prefer heavy flank pearling. If I wanted less pearling (or no pearling) on my birds then I'd breed/raise/hatch the non-pearled varieties, lol.

 

[perchie.girl]

Ahh.... did not know. My Royal Purples have the pearling on their flanks.... I just thought they were only partially RP.... Hmmm.... Mine look just like yours after closer look. But then of course LOL.... they are your bloodlines....hee hee. Layin eggs like crazy right now.



deb

 

[guineaguy]

Well my rp hen lost her most of her pearling/baring and it's not coming back I always get the exception to the rule ones like the bronze who might be chocolate as well and opaline who could be lt blue cinn who borders on brown blonde who borders on pewter. Oh well colorful hatches in store any day now!

 

[waddle watcher]

Your so lucky. I found a good home for my waddles and after settling in to my new place in N Ga. you can just send all the extras you have and I'll start again. A little irony here, I received an incubator for my birthday in early Feb and less than a week later I received a notice from the county that I had fowl in the wrong zoning area. Well congrats on your new season and I hope it brings you much joy. I follow your threads often and appreciate your information but I'm sorry about your cats being useless. My two actually stayed around the waddles most days and had alot of animal to bird conversations. After watching them sand bath one day she actually got in the bowl and started throwing sand in the air and rolling around in the bowl herself. Your humble waddle watcher.
BREEZE

 

[TarheelBirdy]

No, the egg size was normal, and air cell looked normal, keet was active in the egg when I locked them down etc, so I'm not sure why it was a runt... my only guess is that the sperm that fertilized that particular egg was maybe nearing it's expiration date, lol. I hatched several other eggs from that flock in that batch (flock of 2 yr olds) and they are healthy/hearty/huge keets. I have yet to narrow down what produces the runts in my flocks... but out of 166 keets hatched so far this season that's only the 2nd runt, so I can't complain to much. Runts happen!

ETA...
I set my next batch of eggs on the 4th, when did you set yours?

I bought a new incubator (a Dickey

) and once it gets here and I test run it a few days I'll be moving all of these eggs over to the new 'bator, plus shoving as many more eggs I can collect in there too LOL. (There is NO hope for me, hatch-o-holic X10 now).

New incubator, huh? Uh-huh.

 

[TarheelBirdy]

These are 2 of my keepers from 2 hatches back. The Pied Pearl Grey is a little more Pied than the last one I kept

The Coral Blue isn't nearly as Pied, but still looks better than the 3 Pied Coral Blue adults I kept from last season so it's worth keeping as a breeder

Now let's just hope it's a Hen, lol.

That Pied Pearl is GORGEOUS.

 

[JLeigh]

Peeps, what kind of straw are you using in your buckets in your photographs? I want to get some and don't know what it's called. I told a guy at the store, "Well, it's shinier than regular wheat straw" but he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Shiny straw...hmmmm". Thanks

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote: Yah... and it's purdy and holds lots of eggs

Annnnnnd... I traded a batch of keets for a couple of older GQF cabinets that are in pretty rough shape, but I should be able to build a decent 4 or 5 tray hatcher using parts from both units. If not I still have the hatching tray in the bottom of the Dickey (my extra egg trays are in there in this pic), and my 2 Hovabator 1588s to hatch in (the LGs are now officially FIRED... err RETIRED). Now I have to build more brooders and grow out pens too, lol.

 

[PeepsCA]

Peeps, what kind of straw are you using in your buckets in your photographs? I want to get some and don't know what it's called. I told a guy at the store, "Well, it's shinier than regular wheat straw" but he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Shiny straw...hmmmm". Thanks

It's probably bearded barley but may be rye or oat. Can't remember, bought 6 bales a while back. Time to get more.

Some people are scared to use straw... it can carry mites that will infect your birds (that has never happened to me tho). If in doubt, you can always sprinkle the freshly spread straw with DE or Sevin.