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mrsdelore

mrsdelore

Songster
6 Years
Joined
Apr 6, 2015
Messages
103
Reaction score
65
Points
131
Location
Upstate, NY
Hi. I live in upstate NY. Grew up with chickens and last year decided to start my own flock. We currently have 5 plymouth rock hens - sweet gentle girls that I adore. I went a little chicken crazy this year expanding my flock and am currently brooding 6 golden comet pullets, 3 straight run barred rocks, 3 straight run silkie bantams, 4 straight run australorps, and 6 straight run buff orpingtons. No clue yet what my roo/pullet count will be but there are 4 or 5 I suspect are roos - except for my bantams. With those, I truly have no clue. We are also brooding 6 cornish rocks as we have an interest in raising our own meat and controlling what goes into the birds before we eat them. We feed antibiotic free and try to keep things as natural as possible.
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

Sounds like you have a large, lovely flock. Those are all great breeds!

You may want to check out this link to find out more about the gender of your birds
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/15/what-breed-or-gender-is-this

And you may also want to check out this link for more info on raising meat birds
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-raise-process-chickens-for-meat-tips-pictures

I love your avatar!!
lol.png


Good luck with your flock!
 
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Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided join our flock. You have a wonderful mix of breeds. Australorps are my favorite standard breed. I've raised them for years (along with dozens of other breeds), and they are extremely hardy, calm and gentle (my children and granddaughter made lap pets of them), and excellent layers of large, brown eggs. Golden Comet is one of a number of labels under which some hatcheries market their Red Sex Links, and they are laying machines. You should get loads of eggs from those six girls. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your flock.
 
Thanks! I already posted a pic of my silkies there in case anyone wants to take a guess.

I'm very happy with the mix of breeds I was able to get to expand my flock this year. Was looking mainly for birds that are cold hardy (gets chilly here in upstate NY) and good tempered. The silkies were mainly because my daughter wanted them - but maybe I'll get a good broody hen out of the three.
 
mrsdelore said:
Thanks! I already posted a pic of my silkies there in case anyone wants to take a guess.

I'm very happy with the mix of breeds I was able to get to expand my flock this year. Was looking mainly for birds that are cold hardy (gets chilly here in upstate NY) and good tempered. The silkies were mainly because my daughter wanted them - but maybe I'll get a good broody hen out of the three.
Click to expand...

You will most likely get at least one broody out of your silkies
 
Thanks everyone for the welcome!

My poor husband calls me the crazy chicken lady. One cashier at Tractor Supply has run me out several times buying chicks, so she's now taken to asking how my brood is doing. Gotta admit - I love it!

A few people have told me that all 3 of my silkies look like roos, so I may need a plan B there - not only in terms of finding a broody but also in terms of what do to with them. I can't imagine keeping 3 roosters and the havoc that would create - unless silkies are different from other roosters. We had 3 roos last year that drove us nuts - fighting with each other and starting to attack us - before they ended up in the freezer. I don't think I want to go that route with the silkies though.

With my others, it's still early to tell but it looks like one of my month-old barred rocks is a roo as he's much whiter/brighter than the other two and has more of a comb. One of my tiny australorps - not quite two weeks old - is already sprouting a comb and is huge, so I'm guessing that one is a roo as well. And I attempted to wing sex my buff orpingtons when I got them home and if I did it right, two of those will be boys. I had planned on keeping ONE roo if I got a decent tempered one out of the bunch because I'm hoping I get at least one broody so we can start hatching our own chicks. Three bantam roos would definitely throw off my count a bit! LOL!

Here are some Easter pics we did with some of the babies.

Australorps and buffs....




This is Jewel. She's the queen bee of the brooder and also my spoiled baby. She'd sit on my shoulder all day if I let her.




One of my goofy silkies.

 

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