Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[drumstick diva]

Tara is that really just a stuffed model of Makins or (gulp) did you stuff Makins ? I keep thinking about Roy Rogers and how Trigger , Buttermilk, and Bullet got stuffed, and wondering if the same happened to Roy & Dale.

I know there is a place that makes stuffed models of your pets, you send good photos from every angle and I think it costs about as much as a real dog. I had thought about getting one, but, think it would freak me out if it was very realistic. Betty White had her favorite dog taxidermi-ed and I think it said she sleeps with it.

 

[drumstick diva]

BTW Happy Anniversary Tara & Rick - with many, many, many more wonderful years to come.

 

[Akrnaf2]

Shalom Tara!

Hi Benny,
Good to see you in the Great White North!
Has your middle DD let your life settle down to a dull roar yet?
Good Luck with those Teens!
Scott

Scott!
She is certainly doing her part in the Barging! I really hope that I am doing mine!

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

DD, I e-mailed you last night so you would not have nightmares about stuffed dogs...that is a real dog, alive is what Makins was but everyone that sees those clicks says she looks like a STUFFED dog.

Good gack...I'd have to dust four Cattle Dogs if we went about having them stuffed...yuck! Makins, HyBlade, Stoggar, Fixins...nope, no stuffing any dog dogs...it would be kinda creepy doing that.

So either I have a set of sleazy ewes or by golly, I got my timing the breeding cycle down pat. Not like I planned this...seems to be happening and rather good so far (ask me in 17 days when I take the ewes back to see if the ram thinks they took or need a top up...sheesh!).


So 145 day gestation sheep calculator says...

Peanut bred on Jan 14 means lambing June 8

Melissa bred yesterday on Jan 18 means June 12



http://www.sheep101.info/201/ewerepro.html:

:
Gestation (pregnancy)

The average gestation length in sheep varies from 142 to 152 days. The average is 147 days. Individual pregnancies may vary from 138 to 159 days. There are breed differences in gestation length. The earlier maturing breeds (e.g. Finnsheep) tend to have shorter pregnancies than the late maturing breeds (e.g. Rambouillet). Ewes carrying multiple births tend to have shorter gestations. Male lambs and heavy birth weight lambs are usually carried longer than female lambs.

The period of early gestation most critical to success during the lambing season is the first 30 days after fertilization. The first 21 to 30 days after breeding is when embryonic implantation occurs. This first 30 days is when most embryonic mortality occurs. Thus, anything that can be done to reduce embryonic mortality and should result in more lambs born.

Shearing, vaccinating, working ewes, pronounced changes in feeding practices should be avoided during the first 30 days of gestation. Ultrasonic pregnancy scanning can be done on ewes from 35 to 60 days after breeding, depending on equipment used and operator skill. Nutrition during early gestation is quite simple. Ewes need only slightly above maintenance levels of nutrition for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Late gestation (last 4 to 6 weeks) is a critical period for ewe reproduction. This is when the majority of fetal growth is occurring, placing increasing nutritional demands on the ewe. Ewes consuming inadequate diets are prone to pregnancy toxemia and milk fever. Nutrition in late-pregnancy affects the size and vigor of lambs and the milk producing ability of the ewe.

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Pearl's fourth egg weighed...

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Dinner was great last night...no hurry...had a bowl of cottage cheese to start, then deep fried shrimp, then the baked potatoes were ready so had Rick fire up the BQ and cooked the steaks while the carrots and peas cooked up. Yes, yes, Rick is predictable (steady eddy after these many years together...we can finish each other's sentences even!) and fed some of his steak to the girls...tried giving Emmy some carrots and she literally turned up her nose to carrots...but MEAT...well MEAT is a whole other category...she likes MEAT! Bring on the MEAT!

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Seared the steak...this one's for Rick the well done fella

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He loved the steak...said it was done well but juicy, so the searing locks in the fineness, no matter how one likes it cooked.

Baked homegrown potatoes, peas & carrots, my steak​

How sinful when you need TWO plates to hold yer dinner??

Son is coming by (WOOT!), so gonna put on dinner and it is ham and scallops...been so long I can't remember if he even liked scalloped potatoes. E-mailed him, Dad called him, ham and scallops it is. He could be just being nice to get along with...see if he eats any taters, eh. I use to make him a special salad, he did not eat certain veg and no better than his Dad, but hey, each to their own and we like what we like and should be allowed to eat what we like. Ain't that right Emmy?

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Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Tara for you the best stake in the world!

[VIDEO]

 

[drumstick diva]

I want that steak - delicious !! Rare is fine for me.

 

[CanuckBock]

Tara for you the best stake in the world!

Unfortunately, I cannot view videos. I have learned how to cook steaks (maybe this video shows that?) by first searing one side till the blood comes up, then turn it, wait again for blood to perk thru and then you can cook the steak as Rick likes, to well done. If you push on the meat, it feels hard like a quenched fist...that's how he likes it.

For me, I like my virtually RAW, so I wlll sear the one side, quickly, flip it and pretty much done, like dinner, eh!

I want that steak - delicious !! Rare is fine for me.

Rare steaks and lots of ice cream...good to know how to keep a Diva content.

Likely a good idea I put some posts I have put up on some other threads here on BYC...the chocolate one and I even called DD out on it...but no comment...

Hey DD...are you chicken or should I say you DUCKed out??

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Heel low:

Oh yes and DD (@drumstick diva ) would know all about this...words of warning...

FTD!!!​

Jest like Medusa...never EVER make eye contact...ever....​

Bibbed chocolate...whole NEW meaning to choco addictions... ​

I took three strains that were coarse, large, not very typey at all...showed chocos at the sanctioned shows before they were recognized and after...likely the first to show self-chocolates in Canada.

Sprinkles - 2006 unrecognized colour variety (chocolate) back then​

The American judge said the colour was correct and that was all I wanted to know...the type was coarse, bird is large...but the colour, that was what I wanted the nod of the head about...

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The large, coarse drake is my first bibbed chocolate drake. You can see from the widdle ones (full sized adults) I had captured the chocolate and then was working on type. Decent Call duck type.

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Henry was huge compared to the ones I created. HUGE!!!

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For us, the choco Calls are a regular old thang up here in the Great White North...

Self Chocolate, bibbed Chocolate...​

There's proof on the size...that be a pound of butter and yes, a golf ball
make a fist, that be all them Calls grow up to be



Ducks...ducks of all sorts...



Chocos of all sorts...self, bibbed, even makings of magpie chocolates



Chocolate magpie Call duckling​

Sweet, Sweet Choco Duckling....See the other one standing back saying, "Yes, EAT him...I taste bad!"


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There...NOW do you feel like you've seen chocolate ducks?

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Heel low:

FTD​

Beware the herds of thundering WEBBERS....


L00k away...look away I say!

Never kept the Khaki Campbells but they are suppose to be Dark-phase (Li"+"-so wild type; Jaap 1933) and Dusky Mallard mutation (m"d" - Jaap 1934) along with brown dilution mutation (d - Punnett 1930 & 1932).

Keep in mind...black and red are the only pigments in feathers...no pigment is white.

There are three feather dilution genes in ducks...comprised of blue, brown and buff.

To have something to dilute to say chocolate, you would want to start out with a black based duck, so Extended black (E is autosomal dominant to non-extended black - Philips 1915; and Japp & Milby 1944). Think duck breeds of Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) descent like East Indies, Cayugas, Black Orpingtons. We've had the Indies for plenty of years...

A small bevy of our East Indie Bantam ducks​

Note the beetle green sheen on our young male Mel taking Reserve in Breed​

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Extended black may have an adverse affect on down (not adults or juvenile plumage)..."clubbing" as seen by Haws in his study 1965. No worries, adults are fine. You are gonna need black based ducks to start off if you want to play with chocolate, buff and brown feathered waterfowl.

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You need to take a black Call like the one above...and dilute the eumelanin (black pigment) to shades of brown or chocolate or buff.

So remember what I just typed...there are THREE diluters in ducks; you got blue, buff and brown/chocolate.

This is a blue Call hen...she would be like the black hen above if not for the addition of a single allele of blue dilution (Bl)​

Blue is like brown or buff in that it has a black base that it dilutes into grey (think black with white and you finger paint those two colours all together to get...to get GREY!).

Black, splash and blue - lined up like on Duck Hunt (nfi)

I will mention Blue Dilution (no, not chocolate but...) because you require both blue dilution, brown dilution and buff dilution to make the Buff Orpington duck on the Dusky base. Some persons would consider BUFF to be a category of chocolate... The dilutions are compounding in that the more diluters you add to an otherwise BLACK based duck...the lighter the eumelanin or black becomes! Think of it like you added 1/2 a cup of vinegar to a black t-shirt in the wash...now add two more 1/2 cups of vinegar and you REALLY ruined your otherwise BLACK shirt, eh.

Two chocolate Calls and a...a yellow downed Call (WHITE duck which means NO PIGMENT!)​

Khaki Campbells are black ducks with the addition of brown dilution on the wild type dark phase base (Li"+"). Punnett investigated brown in 1930 & 1932. Walther et al. in 1932...both independently concluded that brown dilution was gender linked and recessive (well OK, the female duck can only HAVE one copy--she's a hemizygote, so her brown dilution acts dominant simply because that be all she has to express!).

Mrs. Adele Campbell of Uley, Gloucestershire, England made the Campbell breed of ducks in the latter part of the 1800's. Supposedly she bred her original creations back to Pencilled Runners to create the Khakis.

Chocolate is one of the rarest colours in Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) descended ducks. The dark brown most often has the beetle green sheen on the head, neck, and back. Males have more green sheen and may have some on their butts. According to Holderread, there is another kind of chocolate which is less dark and lacks this green sheen--I don't have this kind in my Calls. Because the chocolate is based on black, juvenile white feathering faults may occur in some strains--some old chocolate ducks turn white feathered over time...recall no pigment = white, so like a dog's greying muzzle as they age--white feathers become more prolific indicating pigment is not being laid down in the keratin (protein) of the feathers. Sunlight also can fade this diluter even further. Chocolate is gender linked and recessive...it will obscure the wing speculum. If you add blue dilution to brown dilution (ah ha...why I mentioned the BOO, eh), the affect is compounding and results in a paler coloured bird. Think in terms of the Buff Orpington duck...blue AND chocolate AND buff ALL further diluting the black base. Kewl

So let's not forget to look at the other diluter in duck ducks (goose?). Buff...also gender linked. This dilutes black pigment to a medium dark brown. Yeh, I know...why call the Orpington just BUFF when it has both brown and the buff PLUS BLUE in their genetic make up...grrrr.... Lancaster played with matings of Buff Opringtons (dusky pattern with brown, buff and two blue dilutions) and Khaki Campbells in 1963.

Fresh duck eggs...all 28 days fresh ​

So uh, like yah...anyone else looking tres forward to EASTER and perhaps getting some chocolate ducks of the munching kind? Quack quack...already got two Call eggs laid yesterday...four Oz Black Swan eggs...spring, in January?? Never say never...

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I have also been posting on the Campine thread, trying to see if I can assist Wisher and others on the genetics and breeding of this awesome chicken breed.

I know readers here on this thread may be able to harvest some hints and helpful notations, so this too will be now posted...two posts and I am going to do up a third one today...as yes, it is, it is FLY DAY (Friday) today!!

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Heel low:

Not my breed but helping another investigate this breed in Silver and the gold Varieties.

Hmm...stumbled upon something...

Sigrid Van Dort (GENETICS of Chicken Colours) says, in the e-series, you should base the Campine (and Brakels-large fowl version of Campines) on ER for males to have patterned tails and eb for width of colour barring (she says, "On eb the banding is wider, twice as much as black than white (silver/gold)." Selection is suggested as how one "balances" this conundrum...at least to me it had me thinking...impure in e-series? Perhaps e"+"/eb for patterned tail on male AND width for coloured banding...it just did not jive in my mind!

For the life of me, could not figure out how you were going to get the width of coloured barring (1 to 1 on female's throat progressing to dark banding that was twice as wide as white barring when hitting breast, tail at 4 times the width, three times on wings, etc.) larger than white/no pigmented in various places on the body...but keep the male tail patterned too...what ER Birchen was to do (male with patterened tail wanted--females patterned tail no matter if ER or eb) and yet the eb Brown was to keep the coloured barring wider than the white portion. Good gack it was an impossible combo or?

Thought on it over night and found the answer.

The SOP, APA 2010, only mentions the modified form of hen feathering for the male when discussing disqualifications, even the portion on the tail for the male only hints at fem-tail with "well curved" for the sickles. Yes indeed, not a hen feathered tail so much like in a Sebright but modified female tail...that was my AH HA moment...the tail leans to the feminine feather shape...so skip the ER Brichen for the need of a patterned male tail and go with the eb Brown.

Recall, not my breed, not my variety...here's some Booted Bantams...that be one of my breeds in landfowl.

Top left - e"+" Duckwing (wild type)
Bottom slight right - eb Brown​

Personally, have not had Sebrights in Silver for decades now...so no ER Brichen Day olds but here is a comparison of day old Mille de Fleur Booted Bantams. One based on eb Brown, the other based upon e"+" Duckwing (wild type).

Left day old is e"+" Duckwing and right day old is eb Brown
Note skin colour is incorrect for Booted Bantams in MdF variety (correct for self-Whites which I also have)
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Left day old is e"+" Duckwing and right day old is eb Brown
Correct skin colour for Booted Bantams in the MdF variety​

I wish, wish, wish the APA SOP would state something like "modified form of hen feathering" in the shape section of the description of the male Campine...not just the Disqualification section. Oh well...any hoo...

Hope this Eureka moment of mine assists you Campiners somewhat...

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Course I then had to reply to someone that was not having too much fun with my references to the E-SERIES...so I posted this in response...

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Heel low:


Super easy. Chickens are gold or Silver (your Campines come in gold or silver, right?) in the s-series and then all chicken colour patterns are based on the e-series. If you ignore the scary genetic letters...just think of the chicken like making soup.

Two choices...

First off, the s-series...silver or gold bird (natch...yer varieties are those).

Second, the e-series...do you want pork, fish, beef, chicken, veg, etc. as your soup base or MAIN INGREDIENT. The e-series instructs all the other colour genetics on how to act or in the soup example, how to taste. What your broth is in the e-series is going to determine how the pattern is displayed in your male Campines...how well your pelling is going to be wider than the ground colour in various places on your Campines. If your foundations are not right, you are never gonna build yer birds colour pattern correctly.

I showed you what may or may not be the correct chick down to be selecting for to get those lovely bars or pellings as some call them. You want lots of black pigment, so if you choose the eb series in the e-series (the chick down SCREAMS at you what it is) then you can go forward...without the correct BASE (again, think of what flavour you want your chicken soup, the Campine to be) you are doomed to have no patterned tailed males, or poor patterns or even the balance of black to the ground colour will be skewed.

Pelling, broader black banding, autosomal barring...your SOP description says you want a variable width in the coloured parts (black) and they need to be larger in variable widths (pending where on the body the feathers are located) than the gold or silver ground colour.


Basic recipe for Campine breed colour pattern:

ER (for patterned male tail) or eb (if male tail is hen feathered or a modified version)

Pg pencilling

Db (Pg with Db makes the pelling and Henk has conversed with me, the fella that made that chicken calculator and he figures the Db helps too with the width)

Silver (S) or gold (s"+") as per variety.


Henk also advised me in October 2014 (yes, Wisher that's how long ago I mailed you all those photocopies of the Campine data from my personal library! Time flies when having fun, eh) that using eb Brown may give more of a wheaten pattern in the Campines, Chaams and Brakels. Myself, not quite sure what a Wheaten pattern is though...hee hee. He also said that he felt "true transverse penciled breeds are on ER." If this is true, then do you sacrifice the width of the pelling or is as Henk says, the Db takes care of that. I don't have all the answers but I am trying to assist.


My concern is that many may be trying to make the Campine colour pattern on the wrong base of the e-series and it would be the breeders that would know whether it is ER or eb or even something else?

If even some of you could start taking day old chick down photos...nice clear images of the head, side, the body...you could compile some very useful information as a group as these birds age and show you their adult plumage types. By following the chickens from day olds (very informative in letting you KNOW what base your birds are in the e-series) to adults...you learn what right from the start will make the final Campine pattern many of you want. Width of black and patterned tails on the males.


Why am I thinking perhaps eb Brown is the day old base you are wanting...because I have so many breeds myself that begin as that chick down and am seeing a correlation that might solve the dilemma in perfecting the Campine colour pattern too.

Brahmas, Buff and Light....

Bantam Buff Brahma male - See the grey coloured down he hides under his gold feathers?



Bantam Light Brahma male - another example of eb Brown, that grey down screams he has lots of black pigments to make nice
patterns in his feathers with ​

There one small part, I have personal experience breeding a gold and a silver variety in a chicken breed...that requires slate down too.

The SOP colour pattern description of both your Golden and Silver Campines says the undercolour or down is SLATE...that screams your varieties are based on eb Brown!

I just spent a dozen years bantamizing my large fowl Chanteclers and took photos of day olds to adults so I could understand which birds as day olds where the ones that turn into the adults in the varieties I wanted. It sure speeds up selection processing...think on it...day olds, you already would KNOW what e-series or base was correct for your breed. Then you got so many other traits like flop comb in the girls, straight up inthe boys...never mind vigour, fertility, production aspects, disease resistance, temperaments, longevity...phenotype is so minuscule when it comes to all the other wannas.

There are a group of you here on this thread that are obviously willing and able to take photos and post them of your birds...so why not click pics of day olds...and then as they begin growing up and as adults...the resulting day old chick down = this bird as an adult. You would progress as a group by leaps and bounds...so much information there in front of you just begging to be understood and shared. That's my suggestion, take it or leave it.

Here's three MDF Booted Bantam hens...same age but lookit the different expressions of white dotty dots?
Even their ground colour is variable in depth of rich redness​

Some MDFs start out with hardly any white...whereas others are over the top white
You find a balance point​

I do not have your breed or variety, but I have slate legs in my Booteds....

I bred for a line of white feathered dark skinned Booteds to cross into my MDFs for one dose
of recessive white to make the MDF colours POP​

There's that eb Brown slate down like you guys want in your Campines...
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What I find amusing is that during my Chantecler breedings, I saw juvenile birds that l00ked like Golden Campines...now they never STAYED that way...

Partridge x Buff = Red Chanteclers...now jest change the leg colour to dark and??​

I have Chanteclers that as juveniles looked like your Golden Campines...uncanny how they look like them feather pattern wise!

The bars I see in the juvenile female plumage...in the Partridge Chanteclers becomes pencilled​

Even changes from moult to moult could be useful. They say a pencilled hen expresses her pattern better and better as she ages and changes her suits of feathers. Some use to show barren hens (no eggs, no extra stressors from laying) with rave reviews because their feathers were produced much nicer than laying hens or younger birds...slow and steady oldsters.

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Are there any keeners on here that keep track of your feathers on your birds in the different strains, ages, individuals?

Hackles and saddles in the male MDF - note the wanted white tipping​

When I had these start popping out of my breedings...

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I got to learn that I had dominant white in the Partridges (based on White Chanteclers, historically saved by a Quebecer when he crossed what was left of the Albertans with his White Chants to eliminate the duck foot mutation and add vigour back into the lines). By taking photos as the birds aged, I got to understand the phenomena better. Fear comes from the not understanding something. The more you understand it, the better able you can deal with it. Record keeping lets you progress at the speed of light, eh.

Red Pyle male...one dose of dominant white!​

The birds never lie, it is just us humans that have to try and understand what they are trying to tell us...eb Brown or ER Duckwing??

Sometimes we are mystified as to the base the chicken is built on...by not knowing the e-series base...how you ever going to colour your chicken pattern correctly...you are likely doomed from the start without the right correct base to begin with...the foundation for all the colour genetics to be built upon.

What e series base?​

Sometimes all you gotta do to know...Is ruffle up a few feathers

AH HA! eb Brown...dark down = eb!​

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Heel low:

I struggle when the e-series is impure...I am thinking many of us do, pure e-series, we got lots of educated versions in literature to follow along.

I can try my best to decipher the day old chick down, but my forte is what I have here at home where I can put my grubby paws on them and maul them IN HAND to really SEE with them right in front of you... The e-series I am not half bad with are eb Brown, eWh Wheaten, e"+" Duckwing, and whenever it's self-white or self-black--forget it. Both white and black can hide absolutely anything and everything including a kitchen sink (sunk, sank!).

Thankfully, your Campines are silver or gold...both types are magnificent when bred to the SOP!!

If you might tell me what page to go to to view these day olds from breeders? While I lean towards rather having the examples in my bird yard, I do have the extravagant luxury of some colour genetic texts that explain chick down. It will be me also learning right beside you, so you better sit beside me to make sure I don't fall over and crush you...LOL

Having live examples are the c@tz meow!

The markings on feathers can be at either end of the colour scheme...black or white (no pigment)
Nothing screams the most contrast when you have black and you have white!!
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The genetic commands are what make the colours and patterns...other factors too in play and I will try to mention some of these too, but in a condensed version.

Chantecler standard sized males - buff, red and partridge


Same thing but in the girls...
Red (partridge x buff), buff, and two partridge types on the right side
I double mate partridge, so the red head is the female line, the black head is my male line
​

Know what kind of pattern you are aiming for...study it, decide​

Here's where I tracked some Partridge Chantecler females...

See the juvenile barring?
For the Partis, this then becomes pencillings
So me comparing May 2014 feathers to July 2011 babyish feathers,
same birds, leg banded so I could follow the feathers along
over the years, eh


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I "like" this female's feathers the bestest​

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Secret to good partridge pencilings in females, juvenile STRAIGHT EVEN barring across the feathers...the genetic potential is there...now can you give the bird the right conditions to prosper and exude those genetic limitations or better them?

I believe in your Campine situations...you want the barring to stay as barring--nice and even, crisp, clean edges, some slightly curved--areas that are V-shaped (my newbiness recalls tails like this??) are possible but straight is preferred over V-shaped...and not necessarily always a straight edged barring as in like in Barred Plymouth Rocks--curves are OK in certain situations...and certainly you don't want the barring to change into the same multi-penciling as seen in my Partridge Chanteclers and Partridge Brahmas...you want autosomal barring (confusing and I gotta learn from YOU what YOU like past what I can see in drawings and in photos of the birds.) Also knowing what is worded is not always something achievable in live birds. Partridge females are wanted three or more pencillings and it is not too often seen without you watching for it and retaining it! Never mind trying to go for more than three pencillings,,,have mercy!

Diamonds in the hackle and saddle of one of our Partridge Chanteclers



His son ​

Some of the markings, the patterns, we want them crisply edged, we want no peppering, no smutt, no uncrisp edging...there are transferrable pattern methodical wants between the varieties.


The SOP for ABA (my copy is from 2005), lists Down Color of Newly Hatched Bantam Chicks - so even here, you have clues as per things like Silver Pencilled and Partridge (Black Breasted Red - the male version of Partis). Do any of the descriptions in the ABA SOP list close to the Silver or Golden Campine? They do say the listing is incomplete and perhaps, a newer version of this SOP has more types? The ABA SOP describes your varieties as "barred as in Silver or Golden Campine Plumage."

ABA SOP 2005, page 192 for Golden Campine variety:
There are gonna be sore heads all round but oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I now need to go back to the APA & ABA SOPs and re-read (and over and over to learn) the requirements of your varieties...this is new to me also and I gotta get my duck ducks in a line too so I can help here and not hinder y'all.

I have already mentioned to you and on my Pear-A-Dice thread ... you can pull a feather and a better or worse one can grow in. There can be red or black check marks that show up to ruin an otherwise perfect feather...due to even the strangest of stressors...the wavy versus barred pattern, the difference of Cuckoo and barring (same gene, different expression)...in say a Cuckoo Marans, the wavy and fuzzy may be due to the day and night time temperature changes...that minute a difference...cold in night, warmer in day time...the feathers growing SO fast (great in an egg laying breed, get back into production quicker and slicker!) that they show changes.

Your feathers can be affected by feed changes, the birds running out of water at a critical time...moulting, pecking order, diseases/illnesses...tons of factors. So we have to be careful too when thinking all this feather talk is only about the genetics. The genetic potential is like the cap on the lid...the full potential can go past the genetic potential but also be held back if you raise the birds and they don't prosper under your care. Feed is a major curtailer of best feathers ever...as is diseases which stress the birds when they should be more able to focus on making the BEST feathers ever. Use to tell our exhibition poultry kids that we could SEE if they were taking good care of the birds...like human finger nails...any setbacks would often show up in the nails and in the birds, in their plumage. You let the birds run out of water on a hot day...the feathers TELL on you...LOL There is alot to be said about keeping birds well and them L00King healthy for it...like an aura of glistening goodness, eh.

I wanna learn and I am going to give it my best shot...but at a distance because "I" do not have your breed at home here. So I have to rely on your input as much as possible to ensure my output is correctomundo for you guys too.

I am handicapped without the dang birdies in my yard, so be nice, eh. I have to catch up to where you already are...with birds there in the flesh and feather.

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See even just in a few minutes...another AH HA...you have curved feathers in the Campines (those henny feathered modified ones!)...oft times you would get a feather marking shaped because of the feather shape on the end of the feather (first part that grows out is the end)...good Plymouth rock barring, straight across, requires a feather blunt ended. Your males have rounded ended feathers so natch...you are going to have some of the BARRING slightly curved.

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I will try now to compose a post on hen feathering, eye colour, double mating for comb shape (like single combed Leghorns, the Campines have girls with flop combs and males with upright combs), white earlobes, plumage quality (Campines are a hard feathered breed), and the relevance of double mating for autosomal barring in the Campine (oft done for the Pencillled Hamburg), amongst other thingmabobs...I will post it here later also so those here won't miss out on some more gobbly gooks.

Before I close though...some business regarding HERE...LOL

Messy Call Duck eggs...not spring yet but perhaps nobody told them that??

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Supper was good and in with good company. And yes, my memory does serve me well. Best son does not prefer potatoes scalloped...but he was being nice and that said, he gobbled up a big plate of ham...so everyone was happy!

Ham, scalloped potatoes and candied sweet potato ​

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One bonus to having winter and snows...the dogs adore that any place, any time they want...they merely have to reach down and ... January 14, 2017

CHOMPERS!


Need to wet yer whistle?


Pheeeet...whistling wetted and slurpies complete​

Rehydrated...so that means...



Rowf Housing & dancing doggies ensues...​

So I must apologize to my two older Dorper ewes...they are not sleazy as I was thinking...

I took Melissa last evening to see if she would be bred again by Boss Man and NOPE, she was definately NOT at all interested in his advances...so after a few run rounds the corral, I rescued her from helping herself to eating all HIS hay and that be that...mark yer calendars for June 8th and June 12th and there abouts...given the info I have read says couple days either side of 145 for lambing.

I guess as I read there, all depends on what gender the ewes are carrying...males are often carried longer than females, so all depends what gender the buns are in the oven I guess. With both Peanut and Melissa, I do hope they have at least one ram a piece. Only Melissa and D'Arcy are related (mother and daughter) so if Melissa or Peanut have a ram lamb...I can keep him back (if good enough!) and use him to breed the other older ewe and possibly the younger ewes too. Boss Man being the only ram here, that eases up the inbreeding I prefer never to be doing much of.

Wonderful part about the Dorper breed, upgrading is allowed so any female lambs that Duro and Decor have, may be registered and eventually that line will be considered domestic purebreds for Dorpers according to the registry--when 15/16's for girls and 31/32's in boys--coined DOMESTIC PUREBRED.

I have ordered my forms for registering and my tattoo letters reserved for the Dorpers...kinda neat, with the Jacobs, I had tattoo letters (went from three to four quite recent back then) JACB...and for the Dorpers...hee hee...DRPR.


Lots of the work we have done for the company is now becoming fruitful. I have received some feedback, forms and items in the mail...things are ticking along nicely. When that factory ordered truck finally gets to us, I do believe we will have everything required to "start your business" for real. Neato.

Supper will be easy tonight...leftovers but the good kind.

Anyway, off I goes again...

​

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Whooooo No chance in the entire universe that I can read that post!

 

[CanuckBock]

Whooooo No chance in the entire universe that I can read that post!

But the photos are nice to view...yes? And photos are = to 1,000 words! LOL

Tables turned, I would fail miserably with any other language other than English and a wee bit of French. Benny, you are the winner compared to me...being able to read these few sentences of mine!

The pictures

...for the photos and images??

Tara

 

[scottcaddy]

Whooooo No chance in the entire universe that I can read that post!

It's not one of her long ones you know.
Scott