Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Folly's place]

The cows are slightly ill and recovering. Their milk is not going into the food chain, and regardless, pasturization kills this virus, and other pathogens, so safe to drink and use in cheese, etc.
Mary

 

[1muttsfan]

Spring and fall bird migrations are responsible for a lot of infections in areas where infections have not been seen before.

 

[1muttsfan]

Sorry about that, Fuzzi. So far I've been getting all white legs. Let me know when you have another broody, and put some dummy eggs under her so I can get some saved up and sent

 

[1muttsfan]

So do all the chicks have yellow shanks? What about the legs of the parents? Even if the parents were both heterozygous, you would expect only 25% yellow legs. Of course, your sample size is quite small, it appears.

 

[fuzzi]

So do all the chicks have yellow shanks? What about the legs of the parents? Even if the parents were both heterozygous, you would expect only 25% yellow legs. Of course, your sample size is quite small, it appears.

Four of the eggs that hatched came from the Sussex hens, but for all I know they might have been from the same hen, eggs from different days. The two that just hatched on Thursday were from the same lay date (3/22), so different mothers.

All my adult Sussex have white legs.

It's frustrating, but oh well. I just won't breed from the ones with yellow legs.

 

[1muttsfan]

So did all four that hatched have yellow legs? I know you had talked about putting color on the hens vents. Maybe you could color the hens different colors, or separate them during egg collection, and track which chicks hatched from which eggs. Obviously if you have yellow legs your rooster must be a carrier.

 

[Dreamzchaser]

Got home from service this morning and jlo was sitting on 8 eggs again. Knucklehead is not even a year and it'd the 6th time she pulls that on me. Take all eggs out and she gets frustrated each time until she sees she is losing that battle and forget it for a bit. Then she waits until I forget that she can be broody and starts again,lol I need to get her sitting on ice to cool that fuzzy butt out,lol

 

[fuzzi]

So did all four that hatched have yellow legs? I know you had talked about putting color on the hens vents. Maybe you could color the hens different colors, or separate them during egg collection, and track which chicks hatched from which eggs. Obviously if you have yellow legs your rooster must be a carrier.

They look yellow. I looked at photos of last year's hatch and the legs don't look even slightly yellowish.

I put food coloring on the vents, one got green, one purple, one blue. I occasionally saw a streak of color on an egg, but it really didn't work for me. I tried putting Blu-kote on all the vents, and it worked better. I still got a Dominique cross chick. :sigh:

My roo is already on my soup list, for flogging/spurring me in the face and I suspect he was the one who attacked and injured (twice) the smallest chick. He also doesn't tidbit much. If I can replace him I will, though he's gorgeous.

 

[Folly's place]

Looks like your SS rooster is overdue for that soup pot! I think you'll need to raise a number of SS cockerels to find a good one, at least that was my experience. Hatchery stock, maybe breeder stock will be better, don't know.
Half of the cockerels, of course the smaller birds, were jerks. The nice boys were all on the smaller side... And trying to 'reform' those attack birds never worked. We gave up on having a SS breeding group, although we will always have SS hens, love them!
Mary

 

[fuzzi]

Looks like your SS rooster is overdue for that soup pot! I think you'll need to raise a number of SS cockerels to find a good one, at least that was my experience. Hatchery stock, maybe breeder stock will be better, don't know.
Half of the cockerels, of course the smaller birds, were jerks. The nice boys were all on the smaller side... And trying to 'reform' those attack birds never worked. We gave up on having a SS breeding group, although we will always have SS hens, love them!
Mary

My original straight run was seven cockerels and three pullets. I tried to pick the best when I sent the majority out to auction. I kept two, and the better behaved, Joel, had a seizure and died in January. Samuel took over.