Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[draye]

Candled the eggs today. One week, out of 74 eggs there are 70 that are good.

Now for the long two week wait.

 

[Kev]

Candled the eggs today. One week, out of 74 eggs there are 70 that are good.

Now for the long two week wait.

congrats! Have a hatch due Sun/Mon....

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

The size of the NN does depend on what they are crossed with. I started with Marans crosses and all my birds are fairly large. I have one one that is half legbar (mom is small crested cream legbar and dad is a marans-turken). She is still fairly large because of the Marans heritage she got from the rooster's line. She lays green eggs with white speckles - beautiful!

I have Cream Legbars, and am starting with Blue Copper Marans, and this NN cross is in my plans (I'd love to make everything NN!). Apoc still intermittently goes after my boot when I change his water, but I have not been remotely injured yet, and manage to set him straight each time, so he's essentially on "death row" - the kind of death row that people are on for a really long time with possibility for appeal, though. It seems that I change my mind daily on whether to harvest vs keep him (and since I can't undo processing him, he's still here). If I can keep him sane long enough to cross with my little legbar girls (currently only 8 weeks old), and he is ok with them (does not hurt them), he may get a season of breeding in - he's pretty big at least among my hatchery NNs, though he's been cooped up and he may be a little fat right now. I'm most excited to see how German New Hampshire and NN crosses do - I got chicks from Eight Acres Farm, and best I can tell, those birds are very large...

I've stopped doing the compulsive weighing of chicks as they grow - I think it's because I'm sort of overwhelmed right now (this spring I hatched 26 and purchased 20, and so I just realized that I have over 60 chicks and chickens right at the moment, and almost had a little freak out melt-down moment the other day...). But also I think that while I learned a lot by weighing every week with that first batch, I realized that it was only weights at certain points (further along in their growth) that really mattered for my decision making, and that a decent number of other things went into it as well - weight wasn't the ONLY thing, although culling tiny boys out of my meat-type birds is a no brainer. Why is it alway the tiniest little boys that are the friendliest and prettiest of all!

BTW - looks like out of my 7 aloha NNs hatched, the fully feathered one is a boy as well (just showing now at 7 weeks because he's got lots of speckled sussex in him). So, 5 boys, only two pullets - Greta and Grace. And four boys to choose from (will cull the fully feathered one - kind of always planned to anyway). In the same growout pen are 7 cream legbar girls as well as 6 boys all at 8 weeks, almost all CL boys crowing, several starting to occasionally attempt mounting pullets. I really need to get another tractor built for the boys STAT to get them separated - it's going to be a LONG 4 weeks until they're big enough to get anything out of processing their little hormonal butts. (I have two 2 week old CL boys from a better pairing that can be grown out as potential replacement/backup roosters for Dumbledore, and 4 girls from that pairing for the pure flock, so none of these older CL boys are keepers, and the girls are for mixes/hybrids.)

Tank and his girls have been doing nicely as a little family. He is SOOOOO good with them. Very happy with this group, looking forward to their babies next year. I need to decide whether to try to keep the aloha girls and one of the aloha boys as a trio (all pretty small for NNs), or add just the girls into Tank's family (possibly culling the two least spotty of the SS girls that I wouldn't want to breed from). I hate the thought of culling pullets for some reason - but there's only so much room, and I am drowning in eggs, so it's not like I need more layers...

Sorry, that ended up kind of stream of consciousness, didn't it? I've been thinking about my chickens a lot.

- Ant Farm

 

[DesertChic]

I have Cream Legbars, and am starting with Blue Copper Marans, and this NN cross is in my plans (I'd love to make everything NN!). Apoc still intermittently goes after my boot when I change his water, but I have not been remotely injured yet, and manage to set him straight each time, so he's essentially on "death row" - the kind of death row that people are on for a really long time with possibility for appeal, though. It seems that I change my mind daily on whether to harvest vs keep him (and since I can't undo processing him, he's still here). If I can keep him sane long enough to cross with my little legbar girls (currently only 8 weeks old), and he is ok with them (does not hurt them), he may get a season of breeding in - he's pretty big at least among my hatchery NNs, though he's been cooped up and he may be a little fat right now. I'm most excited to see how German New Hampshire and NN crosses do - I got chicks from Eight Acres Farm, and best I can tell, those birds are very large...

I've stopped doing the compulsive weighing of chicks as they grow - I think it's because I'm sort of overwhelmed right now (this spring I hatched 26 and purchased 20, and so I just realized that I have over 60 chicks and chickens right at the moment, and almost had a little freak out melt-down moment the other day...). But also I think that while I learned a lot by weighing every week with that first batch, I realized that it was only weights at certain points (further along in their growth) that really mattered for my decision making, and that a decent number of other things went into it as well - weight wasn't the ONLY thing, although culling tiny boys out of my meat-type birds is a no brainer. Why is it alway the tiniest little boys that are the friendliest and prettiest of all!

BTW - looks like out of my 7 aloha NNs hatched, the fully feathered one is a boy as well (just showing now at 7 weeks because he's got lots of speckled sussex in him). So, 5 boys, only two pullets - Greta and Grace. And four boys to choose from (will cull the fully feathered one - kind of always planned to anyway). In the same growout pen are 7 cream legbar girls as well as 6 boys all at 8 weeks, almost all CL boys crowing, several starting to occasionally attempt mounting pullets. I really need to get another tractor built for the boys STAT to get them separated - it's going to be a LONG 4 weeks until they're big enough to get anything out of processing their little hormonal butts. (I have two 2 week old CL boys from a better pairing that can be grown out as potential replacement/backup roosters for Dumbledore, and 4 girls from that pairing for the pure flock, so none of these older CL boys are keepers, and the girls are for mixes/hybrids.)

Tank and his girls have been doing nicely as a little family. He is SOOOOO good with them. Very happy with this group, looking forward to their babies next year. I need to decide whether to try to keep the aloha girls and one of the aloha boys as a trio (all pretty small for NNs), or add just the girls into Tank's family (possibly culling the two least spotty of the SS girls that I wouldn't want to breed from). I hate the thought of culling pullets for some reason - but there's only so much room, and I am drowning in eggs, so it's not like I need more layers...

Sorry, that ended up kind of stream of consciousness, didn't it? I've been thinking about my chickens a lot.

- Ant Farm

I have to confess, I'm still weighing my most recently hatched chicks compulsively. So far I've been blown away by these guys and just want to see if the "magic" continues or if it was all an illusion.

And like you I'm finding it really hard to cull the last of my extra cockerels. Ozzy is in the frat house to keep him from killing his father, but not only is he a sizable and beautiful bird, but so very, very people friendly. Raymond is much smaller than I would like, but flat out gorgeous with his red and silver barring, and he's got very little neck feathering, which I love. Dutch with all of his white feathers may be lighter in weight than I would like, but I still want to try breeding him to my White Rock girls. Pepper is still a biter on occasion but so very good with his girls, fantastically gorgeous, and carries that outstanding egg laying gene. And then there's Chewey, my snuggler, and Q with his buttercup comb. Yeah....too dang many cockerels, but like you said, death is so very final.

 

[DesertChic]

One of my NN pullets, Fezz, decided to turn broody today. Didn't see that one coming.....

 

[Mini Meat]

Mini meat, that is a real issue, they are easy to mix and so it happens a lot. If I were wanting as close to undiluted NN I would get them from a NN breeder, more long term the better. I'm sure there is some breed group out there. Here on BYC Nava has some amazing birds, she has added some other blood along the line to get the blue / red laced ones but has taken great care to keep size and type. She also has standard color / lines.

Thanks for the lead. When I am ready, I may give her a look up and see if she has anything for sale. I have pens to get built first though.

 

[chickengr]

The size of the NN does depend on what they are crossed with. I started with Marans crosses and all my birds are fairly large. I have one one that is half legbar (mom is small crested cream legbar and dad is a marans-turken). She is still fairly large because of the Marans heritage she got from the rooster's line. She lays green eggs with white speckles - beautiful!

good information. I have 2 Nn pullets which at the moment stay in marans' cockerel coop because in the other 2 coops chickens are more aggressive. they definitively stay with him!

please post some pictures of those green eggs!

 

[chickengr]

this is the reason why rats didn't eat the omelette:


I got rid of flies too!

 

[chickengr]

if my duck hatches chicks (5 eggs left) the other 3 chicks will be about 10 days old. is there any chance I can put them under the broody hen at night so that she accepts them?

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I have to confess, I'm still weighing my most recently hatched chicks compulsively. So far I've been blown away by these guys and just want to see if the "magic" continues or if it was all an illusion.

And like you I'm finding it really hard to cull the last of my extra cockerels. Ozzy is in the frat house to keep him from killing his father, but not only is he a sizable and beautiful bird, but so very, very people friendly. Raymond is much smaller than I would like, but flat out gorgeous with his red and silver barring, and he's got very little neck feathering, which I love. Dutch with all of his white feathers may be lighter in weight than I would like, but I still want to try breeding him to my White Rock girls. Pepper is still a biter on occasion but so very good with his girls, fantastically gorgeous, and carries that outstanding egg laying gene. And then there's Chewey, my snuggler, and Q with his buttercup comb. Yeah....too dang many cockerels, but like you said, death is so very final.

I think for me, the issue was that with the earlier hatch this year, my brooder set up was not optimal, and, to put it succinctly, no matter what I did, I completely freaked the chicks out. I know all the tricks of not scaring them, tried everything, etc., didn't work. Lots of looming, hard to move around the brooders to get stuff done To the point where I was seriously worrying about harm from stress when trying to get them for weighing. First weighing showed weights half of what I got from the hatchery NNs, and then three of the seven aloha NNs managed to kick off their zip tie leg bands. So I gave up. (I'm regularly sitting in with them in their growout pen now, and we're becoming friends now.)

Out of frustration I designed and built a new brooder that is elevated and MUCH better, and I can actually pick up a chick without total meltdown, and you're inspiring me to begin weighing again, at least the GNH and Marans... The Aloha NNs are quite small compared to my hatchery NNs, so I also stopped weighing them because I wasn't going to be making decisions on them purely by weight...



- Ant Farm