Nankin Discussion Thread

[Nankin22]

Don Cable is a great resource, but he does not come to this site.

Walt

yes he is very knowledgeable and when i have questions he answers them pretty quickly am knowing more about nankins everyday

 

[Micki]

Thank you Walt! I also thought about it a bit more and even people who have a lot of knowledge may be humble types as well, thinking, "well, I know some things, but don't particularly consider myself an expert". Giving advice to people can be tricky. I suppose the more experienced folks have learned a lot over time, and here I am expecting to get all the answers right now! LOL. Plus I realize that opinions do vary. And people who have been raised raising poultry probably have knowledge that they don't realize everyone doesn't know. I have kept in touch a bit with Lund Poultry and with Mary Ann, and I do need to talk to them again. Mary Ann made it very clear to contact her anytime with questions or concerns, that I will not be a bother, and Lund Poultry the same. Lund does have some beautiful pictures of their birds on their website by the way for anyone who is interested.

I do definitely plan to buy a copy of the standard in the near future. Right now we have sunk hundreds of dollars into buying birds and building coops, so the pocketbook is more than a little lighter than normal . I do want those who put so much time and effort and work into the Standard to get their portion of the proceeds. I have friends who are in a famous band from the 70's and 80's and have had people ask me to make copies of things to give away, and I tell them no for the same reasons you have pointed out. If it is something that is still on the market, I ask them to go buy it so the band will get their profit from it. (the band is 38 Special if you're curious, kin to Lynyrd Skynyrd). I also want to buy leg bands from the ABA, but doubt I will do that this year with this batch of birds. I do want to support these poultry organizations.

Thank you Walt for getting us back into line!

Sincerely,

M.

 

[Micki]

Daugherof Eve, I'm sorry, with everything else I forgot to tell you I'm sorry about your batch that didn't hatch. I can imagine how upsetting that must be. I'm praying that all goes well with the next batch. Please let us know!

 

[fowlman01]

Micki,

I have almost 50 years raising poultry, so I can answer a lot of questions, I just don't have enough eperience raising Nankins yet to answer breeding questions.

Walt

 

[Coop Deville]

And I don't mean to imply that your birds AREN'T really nankins, just that I don't know about that hatchery specifically but I do know what kind of tricks a lot of hatcheries pull

I understood! I have noticed a lot of color variation (for example, leg color) in the hatchery birds I've bought. I won't be surprised if some of these variations show up in my "Nankin".

 

[griffinkid02]

So, I was going to post some picks of my children at 2.5 weeks. THEY AREN'T CUTE FLUFFY BUTTS ANYMORE, lol. They some scruffy rough looking, ragged little boogers,

.

I got my camera out, made sure the battery was charged

, and prepared to take pics as I was swapping them from the dirty brooder to the clean one. I am embarrassed to post pics atm. I seem to have had an outbreak of feather picking at some point during the night.

Everyone was find looking when I went to bed, this morning half of them have bald spots right on the back, just above the base of the tail feathers. I don't know what triggered it, this is completely out of the blue, there has been no evidence of feather picking up till now, haven't observed any of them doing it, even yet. Fortunately no one is bleeding, although, although some of those backs are very red and raw looking, no ones skin has been broken. NOW, everyone who has be picked is isolated in the cleaned up brooder and the unpicked are isolated in the old one while I try and figure out what to do. I have been watching them for a couple of hours and STILL haven't witnessed the culprit. I added vitamins to everyones water and some nutrient rich "treats" into the liter to scratch at, with the chicks between two brooders they all have a bit more room, although they didn't seem over crowded before. I wondered if maybe with the fluff falling out, they were itchy and had done the damage to themselves, as several of the bald spots have little white "pins" just breaking the surface where the real feathers are growing in, but that just doesn't seem likely to me. They didn't pick their wings bald when those feathers came in, so why would they pick their backs like that, just because of an itch. Maybe the vitamins and treats, along with splitting them up will fix it, I would feel a little better if I could at least catch someone doing it, then I could at least start separating the problem children.

 

[DaughterOfEve]

Pecking, feather pulling is usually a space issue. Feather eating can be space and or something missing from their diet. Blue coat spray for the exposed skin. This is the standard answer regarding picking.

I have had experience with all girls pecking feathers from one member of the flock. I put an apron on her until all her feathers grew back, she then dropped dead. No apparent reason. I figured the others k sw there was something wrong with her.

 

[griffinkid02]

yeah, everyone already has new feathers coming in from the picked patches, hasn't even been a day yet, but then they ARE feathering out so... I STILL haven't caught anyone guilty. It just startled me that it became that prevelant THAT quickly. It literally was an over night thing. Nobody had any patches when I went to bed and when I woke up half of the chicks had dime and nickle sized picked patches on their backs. I wonder what made them all decide all at once that "Tonight, is the night."

 

[griffinkid02]

I do know that they were eating the fuzz they picked because there was NONE on the brooder floor. That and when I dded some vitamins and electrolytes to their water this morning both brooder bottles were empty withing 4 hours. They have NEVER drank that much water before. I had them split up in two groups and each group ad a 1qt waterer, and bother waterers were drank dry in that time frame. Sooooo, maybe it was the vitamins they were missing.

 

[DaughterOfEve]

I hope that does the trick for those little canibals.

Thanks for the condolenses Micki.