Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Fancychooklady]

We have , what we call, corgalahs. Dad, a long beaked corella and mum, a galah visited inlet farm daily for several years. One day they turned up with 3 young corgalahs . Cocky vanished and galah and the babies still came to sit at my lounge room window. If I didn't leave food on the bird feeder they would tap the glass. Sadly galah lost a foot, probably in a trap, and then vanished. The babies still hang around and I've been told that many locals have tried to trap them. Apparently they are worth $5000 each. They now fly with a very noisy corella and are nesting on our land, but they are sterile, so there will be no more.
Galah use to follow me round the garden and I'd say she had come from an aviary, it's sad that so many people wanted to put her back in a cage.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I think you are right Lisa, turning free birds into captives is a very different story than owning a flock of raised captive birds.

Speaking of native birds,today Alicia was entertaining the kids while I was off being stupid at a local lake. She spotted a very odd looking duck. She described it to me and I thought it sounded like a goose.

After a bit of digging she found what it was, a duck called a Musk Duck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_Duck

Not the prettiest bird ever walked our water way's, but striking all the same.




She said it looked like it was 'sinking' when in the water, and could hardly walk on land, and as we have learned, was a male.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Beautiful birds - both wild & domestic! Those black swans are so unusual looking since ours are white. We have white swans and Canada geese in our pond each spring until it dries up (usually unless it's a wet summer). I love seeing them in the mornings. We also have blue herons and green herons. The blues are huge.

 

[Wrightsx4]

I looked at my posted pics of my SF boys and I'm glad you all posted what you did. My pic of Bruno's comb was almost taken from a 5:00 angle. I just ran out and got this shot and added it

lol, I'm not leaning toward either roo yet, but it surprised me because I'd always given Bruno's comb the advantage over Pierre's since I thought Pierre had an extra point plus an irregular deep valley in the center. I'm not a favs pro either (beginner) - so I could be liking the worst comb and not know it! Lol very likely. We'll see what they say.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Cluckulus! Love it.

 

[lindz8504]

Cluckulus! Love it.

Lol.... and Eggology and Chicksics

 

[Wrightsx4]

I fail badly at chicken math when it comes to the rooster to hen ratio... it should be around 1:10. My flock is more like 1:3. I could rationalize it if I had a trio of each breed, IF that was the case.

 

[CB and CG]

I looked at my posted pics of my SF boys and I'm glad you all posted what you did. My pic of Bruno's comb was almost taken from a 5:00 angle. I just ran out and got this shot and added it

lol, I'm not leaning toward either roo yet, but it surprised me because I'd always given Bruno's comb the advantage over Pierre's since I thought Pierre had an extra point plus an irregular deep valley in the center. I'm not a favs pro either (beginner) - so I could be liking the worst comb and not know it! Lol very likely. We'll see what they say.

To me it looks like Pierre's comb is better even though it has an extra serration. I prefer this comb because it is evenly serrated and it has a neat blade. To me this is more important than the number of serrations. You are going to have a better chance of breeding good birds with an evenly serrated comb and an extra serration than with an uneven comb with a messy blade even if it does have the right amount of serrations. Just give Pierre some girls with maybe 4 serrations or at the maximum 5. Your best breeder isn't necessarily your best shower. I am not a Fav expert or anything so I couldn't judge the rest of the bird but I hope this has somewhat helped.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Thanks CG and CB - I didn't know that! My (only - so far) girl has a very neat 5pt comb so that helps.

 

[NovaAman]

a combs.... Florus doesn't even have points... No tail, missing toes... Lol. He's a hot mess. Lol. But he was just gorgeous before life happened... Frost bite, fighting... Lol. He's not a looker anymore, but he throws both light and dark pullets, and 3 out of 4 boys have turned out great.