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My friend/neighbor just lost 2 of the 3 sickly mail-order faverolles I gave her last year (these were her first and only chickens so they couldn't infect anyone else.). She made a good run of it -- they grew up to be healthy hens, fluffy and laying. Now she only has one left, and not sure what to do.

I told her to contact @dheltzel for sexable inoculated chicks when she is ready. She is in the same roo-intolerant neighborhood as I am, of course. I am hoping she will get some of the new black olive-eggers so I can visit them.

Question: will your spitzhabens be sexable this year? I told her welbars, legbars, and olive eggers for the sexable ones. Did I miss any? Do you have any sexable bantams?
 
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feliciadawn said:
My friend/neighbor just lost 2 of the 3 sickly mail-order faverolles I gave her last year (these were her first and only chickens so they couldn't infect anyone else.). She made a good run of it -- they grew up to be healthy hens, fluffy and laying. Now she only has one left, and not sure what to do.

I told her to contact @dheltzel for sexable inoculated chicks when she is ready. She is in the same roo-intolerant neighborhood as I am, of course. I am hoping she will get some of the new black olive-eggers so I can visit them.

Question: will your spitzhabens be sexable this year? I told her welbars, legbars, and olive eggers for the sexable ones. Did I miss any? Do you have any sexable bantams?
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No sexable bantams, but the cochins are sexable pretty young and I usually raise some to that point and sell pullets. Spitzhauben will be straight run, if I get chicks at all. I only have 2 gold hens and 6 chamois and some of them don't look very healthy.
 
feliciadawn said:
@dheltzel So sad about the Spitz -- I had high hopes. You bought so many -- were they mostly roos?
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Many were roos, esp the golds, and the gold females died off a bit more. I can still get a nice trio and if they survive the winter, that should be enough. I only had a trio of Ayam ketawas last fall and hatched over 50 chicks since then.
I also noticed a *lot* of pattern and color variation in the Spitzhauben. Greenfire's description leads one to believe they got top show strains from Europe, but I think these have not had a dedicated breeder working with them for a very long time. Or else, GF destroyed the line in the time they had them (very possible given their reputation). If they do well for me and I can hatch a lot of chicks, I think I can raise several dozen of each color and cull heavily to make decent breeding stock.

So many projects and breeds to work with, I really do need to drop a few breeds in 2022, this is getting a little out of hand . . .
 
Started up a second incubator today and it is half full, after filling the first one all the way. Set 324 eggs today (list below). Weather has been uncooperative and many were dirty and a few had cracks. Last setting showed disappointing fertility from the Marans. Will know next weekend just how badly the very low temps affected this setting.
80 Welbars
66 Black/Blue Copper Marans
58 Opal Legbars
36 Lavender Marans
28 Black/Lavender sexlinked Olive Eggers
17 autosexing Olive Eggers
14 F3 Isabel Olive Eggers
12 Ayam cemani
7 Cuckoo Ameraucana
6 Mottled Ameraucana
 
@dheltzel how are your Ayam Cemani doing in this cold weather? They are not supposed to be tremendously cold hardy, I hear. Today I saw frostbite on the comb of my Opal Legbar, Harlow. So sad for her, but she must have gotten it yesterday when it was so windy and snowy. She was the one chicken who chose to leave the coop.

Can you say more about the F3 Isabel Olive Eggers? What do you expect the eggs to look like? What breeds are the great=grandparents?
 

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