***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[BetsyOK]

Reagor, he's young yet, and some take a long time to develop the comb and wattles. But if you can keep him and aren't too worried about attachment to him, do so until you can be sure. I've had them well over 6 months before you could tell for certain.

Notice the difference in the two Robin put on for you. They are older than yours, I'm sure, but you can tell a lot about posture, as well as the fact that the pullet's crest is more rounded and comes down pretty low toward her beak, while the roo's has the streamers in back. Pullets do not have streamers. Robin's cockerel has a nicely rounded crest, somewhat unusual in males. He's also non bearded, which makes his wattles show up more than in a bearded.

 

[NanaKat]

Nice Silkie.

Hope everyone enjoys their day with the cooler temps and dust-free grounds.

Home from helping hubby feed cattle at Prague and Paden. Looks like both pastures got rain. We've been taking hay bales to the herd in Prague just because there is a spring-fed pond and still some grazing. The Paden pasture has fescue and some bermuda but we are on a fill tank with a float...there is little water in the pond.

Have cleaned out the brooder room and put in new wood shavings on the floor...sure like the cleaner smell.
Going to pick peaches off the tree...what is there...they are small but will make good jam ..will clean them, cook and run thru a ricer.

Okieridge...see you when you get here. Kept the two boys up in the pen instead of letting the Four Amigos out to freerange. Phone is in my pocket.

 

[nnbreeder]

Since so many diseases are transmitted vertically through the egg, what is your procedure for disinfecting hatching eggs, if you don't mind my asking?

Actually there are very few diseases that are egg transmitable. And of those it is a hit-miss situation as to whether or not it was passed on. The big producers actually vaccinate the chicks at a certain stage of devolopment while still in the egg. As backyard producers we don't have the cash outlay for the equipment to do this.

Most worry way too much about disease in their flock. Yes it will sometimes hit your flock and may call for a depopulation but that is part of chicken keeping.

The ONLY flocks that are 100% disease free are those maintained by the drug companies to produce vaccines. Everything is sterile, even the air that they breathe and they are handled by humans in full contamination suits.

In a broiler flock 8 weeks are all the bird has to stay healthy and a layer flock roughly 2 years. That is done by medicating the flocks through their water and feed.

 

[nnbreeder]

Friday night I got to sit down and talk a little with the truck-pusher where I work and really get the story about why things are as they are. Seems that it has been probably 10 years since they have had a mechanic that kept the trucks on a schedule for maintainance and they tried to cut corners and get things done as cheaply as possible to impress the bosses. No matter that it only lasted 1/4 of what it should have, looked good on paper, bad out on the road.

This week I spent 50 hours and I still can't say that I have one, just one truck that I would send for a long trip away from the yard.


So I will probably not post nearly as much here until I start to get things straightened out at work.
Next week is going to be even longer I think. I really needed to work today but Teva forbid that, she doesn't want me to get burnt out.

At the end of the day I like to stand back and actually see what was done and to me that is a full shop in the morning and an empty one at night and having the drivers come in at night and reporting no problems with their trucks.

 

[Kassaundra]

A couple of pics from today


One of the hoodas, I think they are all girls b/c I don't see any obvious diff in any of them


Ari is getting colorful





Mensa still the smartest chicken ever.


I'm thinking about mating this barred boy to Reba my red NN girl


Full body shot of one of the hoodas

 

[Kimbroe1981]

Saw this on CL today if anyone is in need of some layers
http://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/grd/3169731704.html

 

[MacGuyver]

Actually there are very few diseases that are egg transmitable. And of those it is a hit-miss situation as to whether or not it was passed on. The big producers actually vaccinate the chicks at a certain stage of devolopment while still in the egg. As backyard producers we don't have the cash outlay for the equipment to do this.

Most worry way too much about disease in their flock. Yes it will sometimes hit your flock and may call for a depopulation but that is part of chicken keeping.

The ONLY flocks that are 100% disease free are those maintained by the drug companies to produce vaccines. Everything is sterile, even the air that they breathe and they are handled by humans in full contamination suits.

In a broiler flock 8 weeks are all the bird has to stay healthy and a layer flock roughly 2 years. That is done by medicating the flocks through their water and feed.

I just don't want to eat antibiotics.

 

[nnbreeder]

I just don't want to eat antibiotics.

Very understandable and that is the ultimate goal for our backyard flocks.

Testing and prevention of disease is geared to the big commercial flocks where it is less expensive to cull a barn of 40,000 birds then it is to medicate and have the carcasses possibly not pass inspection at slaughter time.

Testing for specific diseases costs from $15.00 to $50.00 per bird per disease. I couldn't do it with my flock and I don't know of many that could. About all that we can do is to keep an eye out for sick birds in our flocks and either medicate or cull. Even the birds that appear healthy can be carriers of nasty diseases, just as we can.

 

[nnbreeder]

The main one that concerns me has always been MG and for that you need to dip them at certain temps in tylosin or something. But then I got to reading about the actual chances of it getting passed to the egg andit's like 3% of hens past a certain age or something. The incidence was so low it wasnt even worth worrying about. It's not something that IS passed 100% of the time just because a hen has it. People dip them in bleach and oxine but they're just giving themselves a false sense of security. The diseases that are passed through the egg are *inside the egg. The diseases I've run into have been 110% avoidable by never mixing birds. They stay with the ones they've hatched withor go in with others I hatched. I've had excellent luck doing it that way. The birds I've lost were birds I didn't know enough not to mix from last summer.

A post this good should pop up at the top of every page. Truly words to live by.

 

[Kassaundra]

Poco, Reba lays a white egg, that suprised me, I thought she would lay brown. The black NN girls all lay brown.