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

[Fancychooklady]

Hopefully his offspring will have more mahogany however he is still stunning. I have been following the progress of Raf Wood's blue laced red line for a few years and in the last two years he has made great progress with the mahogany and depth of red.
Here is a link to a pic of a couple of his birds.
http://gallery.backyardpoultry.com/member-galleries/p65071-splash-laced-red-2012.html
It is evident that you have been breeding for type though. In my opinion your blrw Leonardo has outstanding type, far better than many other laced wyandottes I have seen!

Yes I see what you mean. Mine really are still a project but I've been happy with the type in both black and blue. This next generation should have nicer combs.

Hopefully Ben can get a few to hatch.

 

[vehve]

Fancy, just... Wow. I know absolutely nothing about breeding chickens according to standards, so my praise carries little weight, but the colours and patterns are just breathtaking. I'm already amazed when the light hits our Marans just right and her black feathers break into this oily green and purple colour (which I've later come to understand is undesireable), but these pictures just blow me away.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Fancy, just... Wow. I know absolutely nothing about breeding chickens according to standards, so my praise carries little weight, but the colours and patterns are just breathtaking. I'm already amazed when the light hits our Marans just right and her black feathers break into this oily green and purple colour (which I've later come to understand is undesireable), but these pictures just blow me away.

The ' beetle green ' is desired in this breed. These Roos are big boys and the black laced hen is lovely, we call her Audrey.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Whoops just realized you could only see Audrey's fluffy butt.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Haha, sprogletts you say?
Well, at least I'm in touch with my inner child.

As was said to me before I had kids "you have lots to learn about shopping and kids son" I scoffed it off at the time but boy was my dad right. One kid is tough, two and they seem to have this instinct to divide and conquer! I am pretty strict with my kids, but it's not always easy. They like to find the boundaries and test the limits, usually when there are witnesses around hahahaha

I love my kids, would not change giving up my career to start a family. More on my little lad at the end of this post.

Hey Ben went out and got some pics of the blrw parent stock today.





Poor Leonardo got all excited when he got out and the coro girls rushed straight past him for the feed dish.

If we can hatch, just one of those girls I would be so over the moon. What a stunning sample.

Yes I see what you mean. Mine really are still a project but I've been happy with the type in both black and blue. This next generation should have nicer combs.




Hopefully Ben can get a few to hatch.

Yep, stunning. Pretty sure it was the BLRW's that we could see veigns in. Silkie shells were pretty thick and the Coro's we were not confident, but pretty sure we had 2/3 starters in the BLRW.

Fancy, just... Wow. I know absolutely nothing about breeding chickens according to standards, so my praise carries little weight, but the colours and patterns are just breathtaking. I'm already amazed when the light hits our Marans just right and her black feathers break into this oily green and purple colour (which I've later come to understand is undesireable), but these pictures just blow me away.

They are great arn't they. Can't wait to meet soe more. We hatch a couple of Fancy's last year, but both were roo's so we had to sell them.



As I had mentioned before, we had a proud parent moment tonight. A few weeks ago we were at our usual Saturday morning run event and the local news team came down to run a story on being active. Were were interviewed and a heap of video taken. Tonight it aired and out youngest made the cut to be in the short 1:30 piece. Actually, both the kids were in but only Riley got a speaking part saying "I like to run up the big hills" after being introduced as one of the youngest runners at the age of 5. Mums eye's teared up just seeing him on the nightly news smiling away.

Some friends recorded it and posted it to Facebook, but I have not found a decent copy (or any actually) on youtube to share on here. Hopefully we see it in a day or so.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Bravo boys!
Ben I should have mentioned how thick those little silkie eggs are. When you drop them they bounce . I've carried one half way round the state in my pocket without breaking it.

 

[vehve]

Ben, you're harboring future celebrities. And great that you're kids are into physical activities.

To continue on my thoughts on shopping with offspring (in an attempt to explain my opinions a bit and not upset everyone with children, which probably in actuality will result in me alienating anyone who's ever managed to procreate). I don't have anything against taking your child with you to the store out of necessity. You're a single parent. Or your wife is on a business trip. Or you just need to get some food, completely reasonable, no problem. But does pondering what yarn to buy for those socks you're going to make for Christmas (while shopping in August!) really have to be a family affair? Especially when the dad clearly could care less? And the one-year-old is screaming his lungs out while the three-year-old runs around frantically pulling things off the shelves and slamming into my cart? Couldn't they go, say, play in the park across from the store? Or possibly take a nap in the car?

Ok, rant over. This is why my girlfriend tells me to shut up pretty often. She says it's inappropriate to voice that kind of opinions, (especially next to the parents in question). She's probably right, as usual. They did sort of give me the stink-eye.

 

[cwrite]

Ben - congrats on the interview! I look forward to seeing a clip when they are up. : ) After seeing all the pics of Fancy's beautiful birds I can't wait to see how this hatch turns out. How many days do you have left?

 

[Bens-Hens]

Thanks guys! Pretty sure it's two weeks today for us. They went under in a Wednesday afternoon, so should be a Wednesday hatch, maybe a Thursday and they have been under a week now. Honestly, I am trying not to think about them too much so time does not stop (as it does when incubating!) I am going to miss watching them hatch. A friend loaded the video into YouTube so I can share it now! Hopefully this works from my phone. [VIDEO][/VIDEO]

 

[Fancychooklady]

Couldn't turn the sound up Ben , but I got the gist of it. What a cute kid. Must take after Alicia.