Nevadans?

[SunnyDawn]

Quote:

So with all these broody ducks do you have any duck eggs left for me? I need to make some more brownies.

Please?

 

[laceynoelle]

Sunny its okay. We'll get everyone to come to one some day, hahaha it will be great! al these nevada people come down on the same night to see the nvhs orchestra! beats the band geeks.

Peep show those chicks are sooo cute. omg i always get chick envy but then think, hey. i have my own. dont cheat on the little fellas by making goo goo eyes at some other chicken. lol.
Evonne dont kill the roosters! As soon as my chickens are big I would totally just have you drive up in a ninja uniform and toss them over the fence. my dad would never know.

My ma has a broody duck, except shes one of those wild ones. we get calls in for people who 'rescue' baby birds and my mom takes them in and raises them. I know a lot of the times people are trying to do the right thing, but most of the same times the best thing is to stay with mama bird. But anyway we've raised all sorts of things. Its fun.

So six duckies never left and now theres a scary and intensly angry mother duck sitting on eggs in the dog pen.

 

[vegaschick]

Quote:
those are the SLW that will be the mommas of the cinnamon queens i'll be breeding for.... so keep me in mind you guys... hopefully they will be ready by fall.... and hens hatched in fall should be laying by late spring.....

that really is a cute assortment of chicks thoguh... the one lone white one in there... maybe i'll have to take him.... if he hasn't met dum de dum yet.... lol... maybe he'll grow up and be a gentleman to my food egg flock.... these roos i have no have all my girls barebacked and bald.... poor girls.... i'm going to go post them on craig's list right now i think... well i need pics first....

Congrats HorseFeatherz NV (on the uberbroody ducks), Peepshow (NICE hatch rate!) and Evonne! Dibs! Put me on the waiting list for your Cinnamon Queens. I'll want at least one or two. But for now, I went into lockdown this morning and should have some peepers of my own by Saturday. I hope!

Evonne, if you're looking to replace your roo, I think ke_ben will have some extra Blue/Blue Wheaten Ameraucana cockerals. They looked like pretty nice birds to me. Just sayin'!

In fact, I have a beautiful EE cockeral I want to find a good home for too! He's just almost 8 weeks old and quite a looker!

 

[SunnyDawn]

Quote:

 

[Penturner]

Hi Everyone, Hope you are all doing well. Lacy thank you for the feathers and sorry I missed you.
It has been one huge huge long day around here. Yesterday when I came home from work at 1:30 in the afternoon I noticed we had a pip in one of our Serama eggs. they where only at day 18 but that it not unheard of with Serama. looking closer I saw a pip in a second egg (We have 5 total due to hatch sunday) about an hour later a third pip. Now keep in mind my first three chicks required 49 eggs to get. this is 3 from 5 eggs. well I was up late last night because 2 of them where pipped at the wrong end. I am not a huge fan of helping chicks, but with these costing me on average $110 each. I am really not a fan of loosing any either. Finally went to bed at 10:00 P.M and left my wife and daughter to keep an eye on the eggs. I was back up at 3:00 and ave been all day in the shop taking care of eggs. All three have successfully hatched with major help given to the upside down ones. they both ended up fairly well shrink wrapped. I don't know about anyone else, but that helping stuff is very nerve wracking. Anyway we only had a tiny spot of blood from the last chick which we got stopped immediately. except for keeping a careful eye out for infection for that babies umbilical cord they are all doing good. I have pictures but am to tired to get them on my computer tonight. this put us at our goal of 6 plus a couple. On top of that these chicks are fathered by Cannonball and the mother is our new hen Heilo.
We already have show winning genes in our flock. Say a prayer for lots of hens out of these.
Now my wife and kids have decided they want to get three to four roosters and have 3 to 4 hens for each of them. after all it has taken to get 6 birds i am not sure I am up to it. But things seem to be improving greatly with having a hen here laying the eggs. our hatch rate in the past was about 3%. This one is at 60% and may be 80% before it is over.

Another cute story. We have been taking the 6 week old chicks to the outside run area every day but bringing them in at night. I took their heat lamp away a couple of night ago. last night my daughter and I where in the shop when all three chicks started making a huge fuss. they have never done this before. they where in their pen but running back and forth acting like they where trying to get to us. they are not so attached to us that they want us. they are not afraid of us but don't go jumping in our laps or anything. We started looking around for what might have them upset of scared and could not find anything. My daughter had open the top of the pen and the two bantams actually flew up on her shoulder and perched. Big bird wanted up there also but is to small to fly so she picked him up. I then told her. they are afraid of something. I turned on a lamp that was near the pen to see if maybe there was a mouse or something slinking around. didn't find anything. We put the chicks back in the pen and they seemed to settle down. I came back in the house forgetting to turn off the light. intending to go back out later and check on them one last time. Tonight they started doing it again. this time my wife was with me. I watched them for a minute and then said. I think they want the light on. so I turned on the lamp again and they settled right down. Those chicks are afraid of the dark. and I mean terrified. Don't know what we will do when they get moved outside full time.

 

[Penturner]

Hi. I'm back after a good nights sleep. It's 6:30 and I've been up for two hours. I know it's really sick to think that waking up at 4:30 is a good night sleep.
I sorted through all the pictures from the last couple of days and picked these to share

Just one more way to show how tiny these chicks are.

This is one of your two dogs (Rascal) checking to make sure we are doing a good job.

Here are the 5 latest additions. three small ones are those that hatched yesterday. the other 2 are nine days old but started out as small as the other three.
The two larger ones are Lucky (changed from Miracle) and Goldielocks (Yeah someone didn't get to creative on that one, it will probably change also)

And here is Big Bird (our first Serama) at 6 weeks. the other two are his buddies we had to buy so he was not lonely and do not count in the total Serama.

Not pictured are Fuego and Heilo but they give us a total of 8 Seramas and Heilo lays an egg every other day so the count is climbing.

The three chicks hatched yesterday are Heilos first babies. the father is a rooster owned by the lady I bought Heilo from. His name is Cannonball and he was champion of show a couple of months ago. i can't remember just what show off the top of my head but I will say it was not just a county fair.

Anyway I now have genes from 8 different birds in this flock.

Heilo, Our Hen
Cannonball, Rooster from Ohio
Bellini, Hen from Ohio
Royal, another champion rooster from Ohio
2 unknown hens. Big Birds mother and Heilos mother
2 unknown roos. Big Birds Father and Heilos Father

I have tried to get more info on the mother and father of Heilo but that info has been lost. Same for Big Bird. He was on of 28 eggs sent to me from Ohio and there is no way to know just what pair that egg came from. I will keep working on adding more unrelated birds to this flock and I think now our goal is to have a total of 20 Seramas. I want to start looking for some top of the line birds and hopefully get a black and a white pair. In the mean time I will be working on getting these grown up and paired off. I want to raise them until they are proven breeders and that sort of thing and pair them for best qualities etc. I may end up selling some of them depending on what I am able to find in the way of other birds. a couple of these chicks are half brothers or sisters to Fuego and I would prefer to remove that from the flock if I can. But with careful tracking I can avoid inbreeding with this situation.

 

[laceynoelle]

those seramas are so small! i know logically theyre the smallest and everything, but i guess it never sank in how truly small they are. but anyway, theyre soo cute.

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

Hope everyone in northern NV was able to stay warm yesterday - today does not look like it will be any warmer. Already had snow this am - snowed off/on all day yesterday.


Penturner those babes look adorable. Always amazes me just how tiny bantam chicks are - they are like little fuzzy buttons

Nothing in the bator for me now. Have a couple broodies with chicks and another on eggs. Am thinking about throwing some goose eggs in the bator and selling some goslings (personally I do not want more geese but love the babies of course)

 

[Penturner]

You really have to see them live and in person to get just how small they are. In the photo of all 5 chicks there is a water bottle laying int he back ground. the chick that is right in front of it could almost squeeze through the neck of that bottle. That one is the smallest baby we have had so far. But with Seramas it does not mean anything. small chicks can grow up to be large birds and large chicks can grow up to be small birds. They do not breed true for color, size body shape or anything else. There is nothing mottled about the parents of these birds but the two older ones both have mottled wings. In effect you have no idea what you are going to get until it arrives.

On the topic of them being available. My family and I have been talking and so far have come to the following decisions. First you see a lot of talk about show birds on forums like the SCNA. But you see a lot of not so much show birds getting sold. People will buy lots of eggs which means not knowing anything about what you will end up with and that sort of thing. So we decided that what is really wanted out there in the main stream is small birds and that show qualities is a distant secondary concern.

We have decided to focus on smaller size if we can get it, but low cost run of the mill birds. Some real numbers to put this in perspective is to be able to offer $10 chicks rather than $25 chicks. $25 per bird adults or $350 per bird adults. Seriously a high quality Black hen just sold at auction for $350 and the buyer will still pay and additional $60 in postage.
So for now we feel that focusing on the run of the mill is the best way to get Seramas established in the north west. Our plan is to be able to offer our chicks and young birds to people that are able to travel here to pick them up for $10 per chick. I am fairly certain we will not offer hatching eggs unless they are picked up in person. Mailing is nothing more than certain destruction. Even if you pick the eggs up. incubating Serama eggs is not very successful. We wold like to be able to offer chicks, juveniles and adults through the mail but there is a lot of homework to do before we know what all ins involved. and this will only be a good option for people looking to get several birds at a time to help justify the postage costs. Even if all we do is offer a pick up in person type thing it is not unlikely that people as far away as Sacramento or even San Francisco would be able to take advantage of it. Even Salt Lake is only 8 hours away. and we are after all a vacation destination.

We are at the very least about 4 months away from being able to offer anything. But they will be getting offered as soon as we can.

 

[Penturner]

Quote:
All I can say about the weather is the it and I are no longer on speaking terms. This is getting beyond obnoxious now.

Well since the last post i saw of yours. I will take the slow down as a good thing. Honestly if I had some land I would be going at it just like you are. anything and everything. But I am limited to a back yard here so have to do what will work. Probably a real good thing cause when I go off and overdo things my wife looses interest. and so far she is very interested in the Seramas.

Sure wish I was in a place to call two hens with chicks and another on eggs slow. Two eggs doing anything around here is a mother load.