Haven't seen you on for a bit, hope everything is okay.
I learned my lesson on keeping so many grow-outs to choose between over the summer. Birds that people were blowing up my email box to get it spring are just not moving easy the last few months. I hope the works don't stay jammed up for you. Next year I'm going to concentrate the hatching starting as early as possible, and use some of this experience to pick through the chicks as selectively as I can. I didn't know enough about what I was looking at this year, especially working with different breeds and mixes.
Lost our boy Clifford last week. We had been nursing him through about 5 days. He had a crop issue that we couldn't resolve despite every article on here. Well, we stopped short of the surgery option because neither of us had the nerve for it. He was the kind of bird we would have paid a vet over... but we don't have any in the area. And weirdly, my big boy made it through the worst month of heat we've had, was still doing his flock & daddy duties, then when the weather cooled a bit he developed this issue. Right after I had made them a treat day of some older eggs scrambled up, but I didn't float them first and now I'm kicking myself that I may have poisoned him.
Well, most of our birds now were sired by him, so at least his kids will carry on.
