Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[wingstone]

Wingstone.... Our Silver Pencil Rocks are now 8.5 months old, they have filled out nicely, not really tall, but well rounded with a wide chest, very nicely solid. They have settled in well to laying medium large eggs regularly, they are very tolerant of the others in the flock and even the babies they have been around and one is in full broody mode now. She has been in a box for a full 5 days, and I have taken her out numerous times to watch her behavior, she sets in the broody daze a few moments, then gets up and does the broody dash of scratching and drinking, broody poo and each time she is back into the correct box within 10 minutes. Pretty good for such a young girl. I think I'm going to contact the breeder I got them from to get her a set of eggs to see if we can get a couple of roosters to go with the hens we have. Maybe we've just been lucky, or it is the quality of the breeder's stock, but we have been very happy with them so far.,,,

you know I like those rocks,,,when I got away from the barred rock and went to dominique,,,Bruce took most of the barred rock I was working on...really should ask him how they went...

really thinking about going back to the rocks, atleast for a cross,,,,I am not inpressed with the bresse...

if only I could of gotten the barred rock to be as nice and calm as the dominique


(they don't exist without pics).....as Blarney would say.

just curious, where the silver pattern came from,,, what was the original cross...I found it hard to find pure dna,,,,rocks have been crossed with so many different kinds over the years..I had a pure white one hatch, not sure if it was a mutation or a fence jumper.

 

[wingstone]

speaking of those Dominique chickens,,,,my only rooster with a bad case of frostbite is my Dominique,,, go figure, he has a rose comb, and he is worse off than the single combs.

 

[heatherscooby77]

Heather:

Sad to hear you lost a pair....if you really want to go overboard there is the cackle hatchery surprise.....pm me if you're interested....on the Mycoplasma, should us backyard folks be dosing our flocks? or is this environmental and can arise adhoc?

Stake, you can "close" your flock. That means, the all in or all out. It is both environmental, and adhoc. Environmental and adhoc ex: if you use shaving or sawdust for bedding, a rat might have ran across it at the saw mill, a bird could have crapped on it while it was on the truck to be delivered to you house. You take it to your barn, use it as bedding and BAM, you have just potentially (environmentally) exposed them to MS/MG. The adhoc side of it is the dust from the bedding, or mold that could be in straw will cause irritation in your chickens airway. It body will produce mucus to get rid of it, chickens body goes into attack mode. That will let the MS/MG take root and usually about a week later your birds can be sick. Another example is feed mills, they have rodents too! I mean, I can think of thousands of scenarios. So if you are closing your flock, yes in my opinion they can still get sick.

I just wanted some white egg layer for selling. I don't have any that lay white. I actually get excited at the thought of a white egg layer. I have one blue Andalusian hen, but heck, she hides her nesting spot..................

 

[fisherlady]

speaking of those Dominique chickens,,,,my only rooster with a bad case of frostbite is my Dominique,,, go figure, he has a rose comb, and he is worse off than the single combs.

Ouch! We got some frosted tips, but nothing critical, they do look a bit silly sprayed with blu-kote to avoid gaining attention though!

 

[heatherscooby77]

To anyone who is able to do NPIP testing.... or has done their research on having it done. Can someone who just wants their flock tested for personal knowledge get testing done for all the standards.... AI and MS/MG included? If so, how would you go about doing it? Blood draw or swabs? Does it go to a state lab or a private one. Anyone have the contact info for an Pa Ag rep who may know? Anyone who is a poultry tech in the west/central part of the state?

I don't show, and I don't have a purebred breeding program, though I may have a couple of breeds I find I like well enough to keep good stock of. But I would like to know if my birds have anything or are carriers so I know what I am dealing with and the best way to handle extra birds. I don't want to pass anything along to someone else's flock. My birds have been great health wise, but testing once or twice a year would make me feel better... and if an illness happens in the future I would know if it was a new exposure or a dormant illness making itself known.

The required testing is .50 a bird. MS/MG tests are: http://www.padls.org/images/PADLSFeeSchedule.pdf

 

[DivaHick]

I need to apologize to you and the board members.
It's just that my family has owned our land since 1942, and all these city slickers decide to move out this way and immediately want to change my lifestyle.
We have been shooting on my property since the beginning, now all of a sudden it's not politically correct for my city slicker neighbors to put up with it!
One time my dog wondered on my neighbors land and scared his horse. Get over it! Oh yea he is the same new neighbor who tells me that when I shoot, it scares his horses. So one time when we were shooting I went down and observed his horses eating grass contently.
Thing is at 62 years old, I am sick and tired of being told what to do and when to do it.
My rant wasn't directed at you. It is at our messed up lack of freedoms country that we live in and people who want to re zone to bring their city life to my back yard.
Oh yea takes a pretty shallow person to try to take me down by my misspelling.
I am glad we have some perfect people on here.

I apologize back and think we should chalk the whole thing up to not having a tone of voice font. I see what you were saying now, and agree with you.

In fact IRL we'd probably get along very well...

 

[wingstone]

fisherlady, this one is gorgeous,,,is she part of your plan for breeding your own meat birds,,....
gotta say when I was breeding them I could not find a cross that I was happy with both growth time and meat to bone ratio....the closest I ever got was a cross with a delaware rooster,,,he just got to mean to deal with, so that came to an end.......wanted to try a cross with dorking but never got any to try it.

 

[LisaYolkUm]

fisherlady, this one is gorgeous,,,is she part of your plan for breeding your own meat birds,,....
gotta say when I was breeding them I could not find a cross that I was happy with both growth time and meat to bone ratio....the closest I ever got was a cross with a delaware rooster,,,he just got to mean to deal with, so that came to an end.......wanted to try a cross with dorking but never got any to try it.

I really like the feather pattern on this chicken.............very nice!

I cannot have more chickens than the ones I have now and the ones I have on order. I am beyond max and still need to make a bigger coop to handle the new chicks etc.

If I could have more-----this type of bird would be on the top of mylist.............due to her wonderful feather pattern! NICE

 

[ClucksNasty]

Just checking in folks, lot of interesting stuff on here today..

I lost two chicks on Sunday, both Leghorns, and have had two other leghorns get really weak, but was able to get both of them back. Everyone has pretty pasty butts, but I keep washing. Also put some newpaper down, as i think to many were eating the pine shavings. Going to give them a few days, then switch back.

 

[msladyhawke]

Stake, you can "close" your flock. That means, the all in or all out. It is both environmental, and adhoc. Environmental and adhoc ex: if you use shaving or sawdust for bedding, a rat might have ran across it at the saw mill, a bird could have crapped on it while it was on the truck to be delivered to you house. You take it to your barn, use it as bedding and BAM, you have just potentially (environmentally) exposed them to MS/MG. The adhoc side of it is the dust from the bedding, or mold that could be in straw will cause irritation in your chickens airway. It body will produce mucus to get rid of it, chickens body goes into attack mode. That will let the MS/MG take root and usually about a week later your birds can be sick. Another example is feed mills, they have rodents too! I mean, I can think of thousands of scenarios. So if you are closing your flock, yes in my opinion they can still get sick.

I just wanted some white egg layer for selling. I don't have any that lay white. I actually get excited at the thought of a white egg layer. I have one blue Andalusian hen, but heck, she hides her nesting spot..................

White egg layer...why don't you hatch some of my dorking eggs?