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Hey Lenette,
Those chickers are looking good! I'm sure hoping you will get two pullets and a cockerel to get you going!
I was going through my chicks and switching out bands for larger ones since they grow so quickly...and I found some wonderful surprises! I have been pretty sick for the last week and so while my family was in town visiting they were nice enough to do chores and handle all that for me. Today is the first day I've felt half way alive, so its the first I've seen my chicks in about a week. I am happy to say that I found some birchen chicks starting to pop up. When I had lost my black birchen boy earlier this spring I was starting to think I hadn't gathered any eggs from the girls he was with that he was responsible for. But, I found 4 just in two of the groups I looked at. I'm excited. I still have my blue birchen boy, so I will still have some hatching out soon, but I am just beyond thrilled that my black birchen boy gave me some chicks before he died. Ohh, and its official that while I was sick my first sussex chicks colored up...and I have some coronations!!! I'm so excited.
I'll have to see if I can find some time to get some updated pics of my chicks soon.
I also have that hatch with all my lovely eggs I'm dying over coming up. Their hatch date is this tuesday! Out of 24 blue birchen shipped eggs I've got 19 that are looking really good, those 12 Lavender Silver Sussex eggs, I have 9 that look really good, and my own blue birchen pen's eggs, my blues eggs, and some blue wyandottes. I'm pretty excited...I'm going to be drowning in a sea of blues! What a lovely way to go!
Goodness! You sure had a doosy of a cold! I was wondering where you were. I am glad you are finally feeling better
Awesome on getting chicks from your Blk Birchen guy and that he was able to leave some genetic pieces of him behind. You are so lucky to have coronations and I am so jealous of your lavender silver sussex. I can't wait to see those babies when they hatch! I think I might need to buy some of those eggs too lol. I had swore off of buying any more eggs and only planning on setting my own the rest of this year BUT that was before I saw the silver sussex LOL! I think I need to thin down the herds over here first though, its getting ridiculous with all these crazy broodies. I hope I get at least one roo and one girl in the birchens lol. It would be funny if they were all girls!
Village Chicken: I don't own the parents of the birchens. I got them from someone who got thier originals from Gabbard Farms and has been trying to improve on thier line. The guy I got mine from didn't have any gold leakage in the ones we saw, but do have non-feathered shanks and that is something they and I will be working on if I can find the right matches for them etc lol. The shanks on these chicks are kinda dark and also on the older light blue birchen chick I have as well.
I hope the feather coloring comes out good on these birchens (no gold leakage) that is my main concern and then I will go from there.
It was hard for me to get started with birchens because it is hard to find any around here but I wanted them bad enough that I am willing to take my time and work with them, I am not in any hurry. It is something that I think I can enjoy and will probably be asking for lots of advice with LOL.
Oh and please post pics of your new baby when its born and good luck to you and your family with the c-section!! What an exciting time for you all !
Yeah...this cold was terrible...my dad's home health care lady said that 9 out of the 10 cases she is assisting with have been pneumonia this spring. She said that the doctors have been saying conditions are just right for it here this year. So, I feel lucky I dodged that bullet.
I am right there with you on the Lavender Silver sussex. I didn't think I'd get any more hatching eggs this year, but then I saw those....and they just had to come home with me. That was the end of that....haha I went and checked on the incubator settings this morning and am hearing peeping in there. I also found some baby chicks sticking their heads out from underneath a broody wyandotte bantam down in my chicken house.That was a surprise...I had no idea how long she had been setting on them. She had found a little corner behind the nest boxes and I didn't know she had hidden some eggs back there til this morning. They are so cute!
I'm planning on thinning down my birds quite a bit this year as well. Luckily I have quite a few buyers from small farms that just want laying hens, so I know they will go to a good home. I am having a really hard time not opening the incubator. I try to give myself the rule that from the first peeps I hear in the incubator I wait 24 hours to open it. It usually works out pretty well for me. Its gonna be hard to wait til tomorrow morning tho...thats for sure.
I'll have to PM you some pics of my chicks of different ages. I have a few breeds outside of the Marans, and I have some that are just crackerjacks. I'm excited to see what these blue birchens end up doing that I have hatching out right now. I also have an experiment batch of a couple different colors of blues I am hopeful about as well.
