Holy horse feathers, I've been away from the thread for weeks. Lots of catching up to do.
Howdy fellow Scioto Co-ian! Lucasville (actually more like Minford) here!
I've seen your ads around and am trying hard to resist the porcelains. Trying to convince myself I have way too many breeds going on here already, especially with no breeding pens yet.
Wish I'd seen you there! I went (sure was dead, eh?) and searched high and low for showgirls. It was the only reason I went, actually (but brought home a Cochin pair for kicks and giggles). This was a couple weeks ago. Do you still have them? I'd be very interested in the sgs, at least, and am just down the road a ways from Chillicothe.
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As for news here..
I've got a dozen homegrown eggers in the Brinsea due tomorrow. Really looking forward to these as most of them *should* be naked necks. But, I haven't seen any action from them yet. Technically not due until 5pm tomorrow, and they were all alive at lockdown, but this crappy Brinsea is fond of killing babies during lockdown so I don't have a great feeling.
Also, I've been dying to actually hatch out chicks via broody, but all the girls I've had go broody here have given up within a week or so. But, my tiny little showgirl is broody now for the first time and sitting on one tiny egg, probably not even hers (and a fake porcelain egg..silly thing..). I haven't candled to see if it's alive, but fingers are crossed. She's my absolute favorite of all my 50+ and I'd love to see the ditzy little thing caring for a wee chicklet.
Oh, and I'm officially never ordering from Meyer again. I was initially impressed, but there is something wrong with their birds.. I started with 27 (RIR, BR, WR, Polish, and SLW). It's been 4 months now and I'm down to 4, and don't expect one to make it through the night. They've been dropping like flies. I lose one every few days, starting from when they were a week old to now. Nothing noticeably wrong with them and then randomly find one dead or suddenly very weak and dead within a day. I'd suspect illness in my flock, but of my dozens of birds, ONLY the Meyerbabies are dying. Haven't had death or even illness in any of my others. I haven't contacted them yet, although I assume there's nothing they will do about it. Down to 1 WR, 1 SLW, and 2 BRs, with one of the BRs suddenly acting weak today so probably dead by morning. Gah. I think I'll just avoid hatcheries all together and stick to local.
Any news on those hatchery chicks? I ran down to Meyer about two months ago and picked up a batch. I also hatched out some of my own barnyard mix at the same time. My own chicks have been considerably bigger than the hatchery ones. I've just been chalking it up to the different varieties I bought and I figured quite a few of mine were probably Roos. But now I'm wondering.
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