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
Mary
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
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.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.
They look yellow. I looked at photos of last year's hatch and the legs don't look even slightly yellowish.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.
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.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