Naked Neck/Turken Thread

[Kev]

Quote:
Scratch is the cheapest and even that is 15 or 16 a bag. Just has cracked corn, milo and something else.

Yeah that is sex linked, all silvers would be cockerels.. all pullets black-red or blue-red, sorry no (silver)birchen pullets.

For birchen pullets you need either a silver or golden(half silver half red like your Cinnamon).

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

The feed store only has 22% chick starter, scratch(three way), 15 or 17% layer pellets, gamecock mix, broiler raiser.. that's it.. other than the gamebird feed. fortunately turnover is very good for the chick starter and layer.

the only reason for cat food is animal protein source. If the feed had it would not bother with it.

I do miss feeding gamebird feed to everything. Maybe bit of a waste.. but man the birds sure did good on it. might not make such a difference any more now that even these have gone vegan.

Ah, I see. Yeah, we have the choice between 20% and 24% for Dumor. I went with 20% this time, seems to be working ok... One of these days I'll look into local milling with animal protein, but I would probably need more chickens than I have now.

(Oh, wait, I'll have a lot more chickens in, like, one week!

)

- Ant Farm

 

[draye]

Scratch is the cheapest and even that is 15 or 16 a bag.  Just has cracked corn, milo and something else.

Yeah that is sex linked, all silvers would be cockerels.. all pullets black-red or blue-red, sorry no (silver)birchen pullets.

For birchen pullets you need either a silver or golden(half silver half red like your Cinnamon).

I kind of figured that when I got to thinking about it. I may have to take her to the Cinnamon ( that's her daddy), a little inbreeding. I will probably try to keep a Birchen cockerel if one hatched out and survives from this hatch. I think quite a few of the eggs from that run I set were hers, I finally figured out her egg. She laid late today while I was out there so I knew her egg when I picked it up.


The Red Wing Black rooster also has the white hens in the run with him, trying for that solid white cockerel also.

Tomorrow late is hatch day.

 

[DesertChic]

22% chick starter. eventually when they were big enough, BOSS and cat food mixed in.

btw they are hen raised. been cold with a couple weeks of extreme heavy rains. maybe that's slowing them a little bit. They are looking 100% healthy though.

Really? It's been cold there? Two days ago we reached 88* here.

 

[DesertChic]

Thanks for that and the chart on the first batch. I am telling myself to just wait and see what the results are at 'butchering age'. But it makes me wonder, those have cx blood, yours and desertchic;s don't....


Perhaps I'll be able to get weights today- 10 wks one day old.

Mine don't have cx blood YET. I'm still trying to figure out how to assist Tubbs with actually catching one of the girls for mating. A few days back I thought he was dead. I looked out the back slider to see him flat on his back and not moving. I ran full speed to him only to find him looking up at me as if to say, "A little help here?" I righted him onto his feet, he fluffed up and shook of the dirt before waddling off, crowing a few times and making his way to the feed dish again. I'm pretty sure he tried to mate my NN hen, Zen, who doesn't hesitate to kick butt whenever the wrong rooster has the audacity to try to mate her uninvited. Poor boy....he just hasn't got game.


I'm thinking of putting him in my isolation pen with 2-3 hens. There are no roosts, so the girls won't be able to get away from him. Maybe he'll actually seal the deal that way.

For now he just provides me with a lot of entertainment.

 

[DesertChic]

For the past six months or so I've been feeding everything a 22% game bird layer crumbles ( except for when I run short on the feed during the month). They all seem to like this better than anything else I've tried. It doesn't seem to affect the growing birds or anything. They also get leftovers and scraps from the kitchen.

My birds LOVE gamebird feed, but it's really expensive out here....$20-$25 for 20 lbs. That's why they only get it as chicks.

@Fire Ant Farm - Since I at least soak the feed, I add the probiotics to the soaking water, which is super easy. Maybe you can just feed your birds an occasional plain yogurt treat? Whenever I've had a bird that seemed 'less than optimal' I've mixed full fat, plain Greek yogurt with their chicken feed and the results are spectacular. I've even seen sudden, dramatic increases in egg production for days after giving them yogurt treats.

 

[Kev]

Quote:
After those chicks hatched, there was a week of frost on ground.. layer of ice in water. That's rare but happens some years. Then had a series of serious flooding rains pass thru.. ground completely soaked to the point of feeling like walking on a sponge. days in mid-high 50, low 40(that is COLD to me!) then constant cloudiness.. finally currently in a warmer spell of days in low 70s with nights at 50's. However a whole 4 days of rain is forecast for the upcoming weekend. we need the water but ugh. Forecast for next couple weeks is about the mid 50's for daytimes..

 

[Kev]

Quote:

Funny but I'd say that might be a warning sign to breed him ASAP. especially with it getting warm in your area.

I would recommend isolating him no hens and isolate hens separately. Would prefer bringing a hen to him rather than vice versa... they can be trained to start mating immediately.. trust me they learn this pretty fast lol... also that way you can supervise and see if he is successfully mating them and prevent him flipping over when you;re not around- they will die if stuck on back for too long. the hens need to be isolated without any other rooster so they will be more or less 'ready, willing' when visiting him.

I noticed the cx cockerel was able to breed some hens but totally failed with others despite repeat efforts. This spared some wasted efforts on incubating eggs out of those hens- something to consider if incubator space is limited.

sure am interested in results out of him and your NN.

 

[Kev]

weighed the biggest cx nn cockerel and pullet just now:

Pullet 65.28, cockerel 64.32

this is the pullet:



@Phil she is the silver colored chick.

 

[chickengr]

my little chick has leg problem and twisted toes. I am not sure if she was hatched like that or it is an injury. I had to take her out of the bator as she got stuck in the hole on the floor.

she is running away from the lamp. besides the feed I chopped her some dandelion and gave her some sesame seeds. she was pecking dandelion and when she discovered sesame seeds she said: rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and gobbled them. when I checked her at 5 am she was sleeping on the floor and no trace of feed, lol. I put some more.



btw, I give my chickens home made sheep's yogurt and boiled eggs. they have been bombing me with the eggs, I have too many.