Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[LittleMissPurdy]

Awesome pictures everyone!! Beautiful birds!!
Handsome fellas everyone has !!!
I miss that pencil feather, our Babs was a beautiful Pencil Wyandotte.
*Fisherlady- Mindy is so great! Such a kind girl.

 

[LadyBehir]

I think there needs to be a Mindy & Friends 2024 calendar.

 

[fangedknight]

I have the John Suscovich book, if you want to stop by and get it. Read it and decided it was not quite what I needed. You can borrow it for as long as you want.

That would be absolutely wonderful! I need to come by with some goose eggs anyways. I feel kinda silly that they all got washed and put in the fridge already, cause there's 19 of them just chilling in the lunchmeat drawer!! It's insane how quickly they're all laying. But it's still too cold for me to let them hatch out there. Plus... nobody's sitting yet.

My field is too uneven for wheels so I use a hand cart to lift the front edge and pull it. I would recommend doing the wheels last and trying to just pull it to see if that works. I now give lots of thought to how I can move it sideways and start pulling it backwards. That can be a lot of work with some designs.

I have an idea of getting an atv/utv/tractor/something to use as a utility vehicle to help me move feed around (Cause my back isn't getting any better and neither is my mother's) and then to also pull the chicken tractors as we need to. But I'll definitely test it out without wheels first!

Hi from Berks County! I'm new to BYC & excited to have found other chicken enthusiasts to talk to! Me & my kiddos (toddler & preschooler) are going to be starting on a new adventure of selling hatching eggs & chicks (maybe pullets too?). I'm a stay-at-home mom & used to raise chickens when I was involved in FFA & thought it would be a great experience for my kids as well! My preschooler is so excited & says she wants to make a farmstand to sell our eggs lol
I wanted to get a feel for which breeds might sell the best in our area. Would anyone mind looking at the list of breeds we'll have & give any input on which ones you or others locally might be interested in in the future? I figured I can always change which breeds of roosters we're keeping if there seems to be a big need for a certain breed. Some I plan to breed as purebreds & others will be mixed breed to create rainbow layers.

•Whiting True Blues
•Black Copper Marans
•Buff Orpingtons
•Speckled Sussex
•Bielefelder
•Black Australorp
•Welsummers
•Blue Cochins
•Salmon Faverolles
•Lavender Cochin Bantams (some will be frizzles)
•was thinking of maybe adding some Silverudd's Blue (Isbar) too

Any input would be helpful! I started off just planning on having a couple but there are so many awesome kid friendly chicken breeds that I couldn't narrow it down so now we're going to have a big mixed flock! Lol Anyone else have this problem of ending up with more chickens than they originally planned on because there's just too many awesome breeds?

Berks county! Springhouse farm?!?! Holy Moley, you're right down the road from me! Welcome to BYC, Neighbor! It's great to have you here! I will definitely agree with Dennis, he's the man when it comes to selling chicks so definitely talk to him.

Though I will say that the breeds you have would definitely do well. I haven't started selling chicks or pullets seriously yet, we're still waiting for our project chicks to come in the mail so I can start working on my sex link project. I've never heard of Whiting True Blues before though, do you have any pictures?

But we should totally chat sometime!

Just finished setting eggs. Had to start up incubators 4 and 5!
Set 697 chicken eggs and 7 muscovy duck eggs.
This Thursday, I will be putting about 440 eggs into the hatchers, to start hatching a week from today.

GOOD GODS! You got any room for goose eggs in there...? Cause uhhhh... I'm getting overrun and I can't possibly eat all of these! (Thankfully I still owe a half dozen to a friend. And I have another friend who does Ukrainian eggs and goose eggs are apparently what she prefers to use, so she'll take as many as I want to give her lol). But seriously people, if anyone needs any fertile goose eggs. Please by all means let me know and I can meet you someplace.

Also in non-chicken news... I'm 29 years old today!

 

[SpringhouseFarm]

That would be absolutely wonderful! I need to come by with some goose eggs anyways. I feel kinda silly that they all got washed and put in the fridge already, cause there's 19 of them just chilling in the lunchmeat drawer!! It's insane how quickly they're all laying. But it's still too cold for me to let them hatch out there. Plus... nobody's sitting yet.


I have an idea of getting an atv/utv/tractor/something to use as a utility vehicle to help me move feed around (Cause my back isn't getting any better and neither is my mother's) and then to also pull the chicken tractors as we need to. But I'll definitely test it out without wheels first!




Berks county! Springhouse farm?!?! Holy Moley, you're right down the road from me! Welcome to BYC, Neighbor! It's great to have you here! I will definitely agree with Dennis, he's the man when it comes to selling chicks so definitely talk to him.

Though I will say that the breeds you have would definitely do well. I haven't started selling chicks or pullets seriously yet, we're still waiting for our project chicks to come in the mail so I can start working on my sex link project. I've never heard of Whiting True Blues before though, do you have any pictures?

But we should totally chat sometime!




GOOD GODS! You got any room for goose eggs in there...? Cause uhhhh... I'm getting overrun and I can't possibly eat all of these! (Thankfully I still owe a half dozen to a friend. And I have another friend who does Ukrainian eggs and goose eggs are apparently what she prefers to use, so she'll take as many as I want to give her lol). But seriously people, if anyone needs any fertile goose eggs. Please by all means let me know and I can meet you someplace.

Also in non-chicken news... I'm 29 years old today!

Thank you & hello! So I'm just realizing there is a place called Springhouse Farm in birdsboro, is that the one you're thinking of? That's not mine lol So I guess I may be having to tweak our name to avoid confusion haha I was trying to decide on what to call our place & had decided to call it Springhouse Farm because we live in a 100 yr old farmhouse that still gets its water from an old springhouse & I couldn't think of any other names at the time. It's unfortunate someone near us already uses that name lol

I'm picking up my Whiting True Blue hatching eggs next Thurs so I can definitely post pictures when they hatch They're a relatively new breed & lay blue eggs. I'm going to be using them for my rainbow eggs project. That's neat you're starting a project as well!

We have some chicks coming in the mail too, I hope neither of us will have issues getting our chicks with there being avian flu quarantine zones in Lancaster County. I heard they're restricting the movement/buying/selling of birds so hopefully the quarantine zone doesn't get bigger or eventually encompass our area! We were just at Green Dragon & they had signs saying they can't sell birds until the restriction is lifted.

Also Happy Birthday!

 

[LittleMissPurdy]

That would be absolutely wonderful! I need to come by with some goose eggs anyways. I feel kinda silly that they all got washed and put in the fridge already, cause there's 19 of them just chilling in the lunchmeat drawer!! It's insane how quickly they're all laying. But it's still too cold for me to let them hatch out there. Plus... nobody's sitting yet.


I have an idea of getting an atv/utv/tractor/something to use as a utility vehicle to help me move feed around (Cause my back isn't getting any better and neither is my mother's) and then to also pull the chicken tractors as we need to. But I'll definitely test it out without wheels first!




Berks county! Springhouse farm?!?! Holy Moley, you're right down the road from me! Welcome to BYC, Neighbor! It's great to have you here! I will definitely agree with Dennis, he's the man when it comes to selling chicks so definitely talk to him.

Though I will say that the breeds you have would definitely do well. I haven't started selling chicks or pullets seriously yet, we're still waiting for our project chicks to come in the mail so I can start working on my sex link project. I've never heard of Whiting True Blues before though, do you have any pictures?

But we should totally chat sometime!




GOOD GODS! You got any room for goose eggs in there...? Cause uhhhh... I'm getting overrun and I can't possibly eat all of these! (Thankfully I still owe a half dozen to a friend. And I have another friend who does Ukrainian eggs and goose eggs are apparently what she prefers to use, so she'll take as many as I want to give her lol). But seriously people, if anyone needs any fertile goose eggs. Please by all means let me know and I can meet you someplace.

Also in non-chicken news... I'm 29 years old today!

Happy Birthday

 

[fangedknight]

Thank you & hello! So I'm just realizing there is a place called Springhouse Farm in birdsboro, is that the one you're thinking of? That's not mine lol So I guess I may be having to tweak our name to avoid confusion haha I was trying to decide on what to call our place & had decided to call it Springhouse Farm because we live in a 100 yr old farmhouse that still gets its water from an old springhouse & I couldn't think of any other names at the time. It's unfortunate someone near us already uses that name lol

I'm picking up my Whiting True Blue hatching eggs next Thurs so I can definitely post pictures when they hatch They're a relatively new breed & lay blue eggs. I'm going to be using them for my rainbow eggs project. That's neat you're starting a project as well!

We have some chicks coming in the mail too, I hope neither of us will have issues getting our chicks with there being avian flu quarantine zones in Lancaster County. I heard they're restricting the movement/buying/selling of birds so hopefully the quarantine zone doesn't get bigger or eventually encompass our area! We were just at Green Dragon & they had signs saying they can't sell birds until the restriction is lifted.

Also Happy Birthday!

Ohhhhh!! Yeah, that'd be the Springhouse Farm I'm thinking of. They're a pretty popular equestrian facility around here. But hello anyways neighbor!

Yay! Chick pics! And yeah, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to sell my sex link chicks with no problem once I get everything up and running.

I hadn't heard of there being a quarantine zone in PA yet. This is a bit concerning. Though I know the chicks I'm getting next month are ones I'm picking up from my local feed mill. (Oley Valley Feed is who I go to, they're amazing).

When we order our meat birds, then they'll be shipped in so hopefully there isn't a huge delay with that... Let me know how it goes with getting your chicks in the mail because my meat bird order is going to be together with my neighbor and we'll be ordering a decent bunch of them.

And thank you for the birthday wishes!

Happy Birthday

Thank you!!

 

[dheltzel]

GOOD GODS! You got any room for goose eggs in there...? Cause uhhhh... I'm getting overrun and I can't possibly eat all of these! (Thankfully I still owe a half dozen to a friend. And I have another friend who does Ukrainian eggs and goose eggs are apparently what she prefers to use, so she'll take as many as I want to give her lol). But seriously people, if anyone needs any fertile goose eggs. Please by all means let me know and I can meet you someplace.

Also in non-chicken news... I'm 29 years old today!

I remember being 29. I liked it and stayed that age for about 15 years.

I do have room for some goose eggs. They might not be as fertile as you think, so you might want to just bring some of the newest ones. I have goose eggs from 2 other people and so for nothing fertile (OOOO goose eggs, right! )

Vaccinated over 200 chicks this morning, now to get appointments setup for all the customers to come get them.

 

[dheltzel]

I recently started testing some of my flock of Opal (lavender) Legbars. This population has had the recessive gene for white eggs ever since I got them. I have invested hundreds of dollars and many hours of time working with them. A month ago, I had all 5 of my cockerels tested and only 2 were homozygous for blue eggs. I also had 2 pullets tested and both had the white egg gene (which I am trying to eliminate). Last week I sent in samples for 5 more pullets, and this time 3 came back homozygous. They had been cohabitating with the 2 roosters, so today I pulled them out of the main flock and isolated them in a pen where I can mark their eggs and give them special care. It costs $125 to test those 5 pullets, so they, and their homozygous brothers are almost certainly the most valuable birds on the entire farm right now. They will get extra special care and conjugal visits from the best of the 2 cockerels every weekend. Every egg they lay will be marked and hatched separately from the other of their breed, as they are the foundation for all my future generations of Opals.

 

[fangedknight]

I remember being 29. I liked it and stayed that age for about 15 years.

I do have room for some goose eggs. They might not be as fertile as you think, so you might want to just bring some of the newest ones. I have goose eggs from 2 other people and so for nothing fertile (OOOO goose eggs, right! )

Vaccinated over 200 chicks this morning, now to get appointments setup for all the customers to come get them.

Ah yes, the 29-ish forever, yeaaahhh my mom made that joke yesterday morning. Honestly with how my boyfriend is already planning some kind of huge surprise for my 30th I don't think I'm gonna be able to stay 29 for anything longer than this year lol.

Oooo alright cool, I'm setting aside some (and not washing them) as we pull them, so far I have 2 from the group in with Max, need to go down and see if Klaus' girls have anything ready for us to collect yet. I am making sure we're marking which group/gaggle it came from and the date we collected them. (So for instance these two we have from Max's gaggle, are labeled 3/7/23 M. Klaus will obviously have a K on them).

That's a lot of vaccinations! Great job!

 

[TillyPeeps]

I have a second pullet developed wry neck. My lavender ameraucana, Hershey. I had several chickens died from Marek, but these two ameraucanas are the only ones with serious nerve damage. Only thing I can think is that they are sisters, so it's determined by their gene. The vaccinations do help though. After 4 months, Water has no more wryneck but obvious nerve damage, including out of balance a lot, slowly walking, etc., but she doesn't have tumor or organ failure symptoms like my other chickens. She also would miss the treats by about 2" when she tried to peck them. I have been taking her back in my basement at night and taking her out every morning, so she can eat and drink and get her medicines. She seems doing ok, even though many other chickens bullied her a lot. Now I have to take two chickens in and out every day. Both get vitamin E, B, and St Johns Wort drops every night. I don't know what else can I do. Maybe add Oregano Oil too?