New Jersey

[KelseyBoxer]

Thank you for all the information. Great advise on the Sat/Sun agenda. I am going to talk to my husband and shoot for the Delmarva show...Saturday. People on this site are so helpful and nice. Local people are even better! (no offense to the rest of the country)

 

[mame1616]

Thank you for all the information. Great advise on the Sat/Sun agenda. I am going to talk to my husband and shoot for the Delmarva show...Saturday. People on this site are so helpful and nice. Local people are even better! (no offense to the rest of the country)

I've seen/ read about too many people showing up after lunch on a Sunday to find everyone long gone. I wish the clubs would make that part of the show activity more clear.

Chicken people are always helpful. There's been a lot of people that come over from the dog and horse worlds, and they are always shocked at how open everyone is with information.

Here's another tip: There's a great buffet at the casino next door to the show hall! We always eat there every year.

 

[KelseyBoxer]

Yeah! Its gonna be like dinner and a movie. But instead it will be chicken/dinner. It is a good ride home so I don't want to cook. Its about 1hr 50 mins from me. Almost 100 miles. Im sure your trip will be longer. Do you stay overnite?

 

[mame1616]

Yeah! Its gonna be like dinner and a movie. But instead it will be chicken/dinner. It is a good ride home so I don't want to cook. Its about 1hr 50 mins from me. Almost 100 miles. Im sure your trip will be longer. Do you stay overnite?

I coop in on Fridays, so I actually stay for two nights. It's just over a three hour drive for me.

If you want to get on your way after the show, there's a ton of shopping and places to eat as you get closer to 95.

 

[KelseyBoxer]

I can't wait until that weekend. I have some eggs that are starting to hatch today. So far there are 2 fuzzy ameruacana babies. I see 3 more pips. There are 14 eggs in there. A few I thought had quit but I didn't want to give up on them. Alll of these eggs are from my black Ameruacana roo and his ladies. (2 blue, 2 black and 6 mixed hens from my GLW)

 

[llandry]

What a nice day! The girls FINALLY came out of the coop. All the way out too, not just all of their heads sticking out of the door way. A good amount of the snow melted too. Now their yards a big sloppy mess but they don't seem to mind that at all.

 

[KevinLynch]

Hello! Does anybody know good places to buy ducklings in New Jersey, I just want one or two as pets, I cannot find any sellers.

 

[JerseyHen]

Anybody up for having a swap kind of thing? I am thinking seeds/plants/birds/eggs/supplies?

I love to garden and this year I want a large variety of tomatoes, peppers, and squash, but I can't plant 100 rows of any one thing. I was thinking that I could parse out my packets and we could get together and do some swapping? I was going to do the gardening thread thing where you mail them, but I am really terrible about that stuff. Maybe if I mass prepped all my envelopes I would be better. So, in the mean time, anyone in NNJ that might want to trade seeds? If we meet up at the spring show we could do started plants and later season seeds...

 

[BobMcDuff]

Newbie here, still in the planning phases of coop design and picking chicken breeds. Was contemplating hatching our own (yes extra work but thought it could be fun for our daughters). Looking over the homemade incubators I have more than enough parts laying around to build one. For those of you in the area, what breeds are good for our climate? Two younger girls so would want calm quiet-ish birds with decent egg laying abilities, and the girls would also probably enjoy "pretty" birds. Also, where are you getting your hatching eggs? Local or shipped (I believe shipped has lower success rate correct?). Thanks for any help and a future of advice.

 

[JerseyHen]

Newbie here, still in the planning phases of coop design and picking chicken breeds. Was contemplating hatching our own (yes extra work but thought it could be fun for our daughters). Looking over the homemade incubators I have more than enough parts laying around to build one. For those of you in the area, what breeds are good for our climate? Two younger girls so would want calm quiet-ish birds with decent egg laying abilities, and the girls would also probably enjoy "pretty" birds. Also, where are you getting your hatching eggs? Local or shipped (I believe shipped has lower success rate correct?). Thanks for any help and a future of advice.

Welcome, Bob!

My 8 year old loves hatching her own chicks. It can be stressful though since you never know what you will get for a hatch rate. I say go for it though, it is a great learning experience as well. I usually try to get my eggs locally, shipped eggs generally have low hatching rates even when well shipped. That said, if you decide you want something particular and you want a specific quality of bird, you may have to have a breeder ship you eggs. If you just want a few pretty birds that lay lots of eggs, you may be just as happy with a barnyard mix.

I find the "layer" birds to be a bit more skittish than my "dual" purpose birds. My salmon faverolles have been the most friendly, but they also go broody on me a lot (less eggs, great momma birds). My brahmas are super friendly, but are big birds (less per square foot that you can keep in your coop). Speckled sussex and barred rocks are good, hardy, all around birds that are also very pretty and don't seem to be very flighty. I have found that leghorns, jaerhons, hamburgs, lakenvelders, ameraucanas, and that sort that are quite flighty (with a few individual exceptions and may not be everyone's experience), but can be really great foraging birds. I have a few spitzhaubens that I expected to be skittish, but are actually super friendly, as are my brabanters. Those are some very neat looking birds as well. My best layers (and most hardy birds) have been my barnyard mutts though (no pedigree, but almost always very pretty and healthy birds).