Pipd's Peeps!

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I FINALLY CAUGHT IT! If any of you wondered what it looks / sounds like when a days-old cockerel crows, here you go!

Blue is now crowing as of this morning, bringing me up to two cockerels out of the three. Please, please, please let White be a pullet!

 

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Phew, losing track of the days over here! Okay, first off, happy hatchday to my beloved Elly-Welly Elda, who turned 4 today! There will be a hatchday party at some point this week, cake and all, IF the weather ever breaks so we aren't waist-deep in mud!


Second, the babies have graduated to shavings! I didn't get much in the way of pictures because it took a lot of work to switch them over. They also graduated out of the baby bin and into a right proper brooder, which of course required cleaning up the old brooder from the kiddos (who literally shredded the tarp that their brooder was made from--last time I buy that cheapo brand ) and rebuilding a brooder with a new tarp. Here they are getting ready for bed on their fresh shavings tonight.

Little White band is one week old today, and the other two are tomorrow. I never really did individual shots of them as day olds like the kiddos, but I might go ahead and start on that tomorrow. The kids outside are 11 weeks old tomorrow, so I may go ahead and get some pictures of them, too. The girls haven't changed a whole lot other than getting BIGGER, but the boys are starting to get lots of color (well, more of the same colors, anyway ). Un still has no tail feathers, either! Wonder if that boy will ever grow those in!

Anyway, I may or may not be busy tomorrow, so that's why it's all a maybe. Because I may or may not have done something that I shouldn't have done that I need to get things around for. Coming Monday.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Babies today! I'm calling it 1 week for the lot of them! I'm relatively sure already that they're all three boys. UGH! So, here's hoping they're well behaved young men!

Here's Blue band:

Pink band:

And White band:

And some extra pictures, because they're too cute. They are FULL of energy! This is the only shot I got of little wings a-flapping, but I do have a short video of them expelling some energy, so I'll get that uploaded ASAP to post.

Look at these little punks!

Pink band has just the sweetest face. He also already has little wattles coming in!

Little beepers. They're still becoming acquainted with this 'shavings' stuff.

Little White band. I swear, he's the hardest to get a good shot of!

Still getting things around for tomorrow, and I think we're in for more rain. So pictures of the kiddos outside are not likely today. Oh, well.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Those faces!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Soooo.... I did a thing.

...But I can explain! Okay, when I said definitely no more chicks until after my summer semester class, I said that because I was factoring in a few weeks for incubation time or the nearest available week for ordering bantam chicks at Meyer Hatchery, which would put them too close to the beginning of that class for my liking. Well, on Friday I was alerted to the fact that Meyer had some Mottled Cochin bantams come available for this week. After weighing the pros and cons, and because I'm fairly sure the three munchkins I hatched are all boys, I decided to go ahead and get some with the hopes of getting a pair or trio to cross into my Silkied line. It also helped that they had some Silver Gray Dorking pullets available, which I couldn't resist, so I have two more Dorks as well. They're only a week younger than the munchkin trio, so they should get along just fine. I have them in the baby bin on towels for now, though, so that they can recover from hatching and handling and the car ride home, and start to learn what to eat and drink. They're all tuckered out after their long day. More pictures later!

 

[itspebbl]

I was hoping you'd get more before fall!! I'm excited to see what happens!!

 

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I was very, very, VERY torn about it. I don't make split-second decisions on adding on to my flock like this. But, I think it'll be worthwhile in the end. I'm excited, too!!

Here are tons of pictures! I wanted to get some of the silkied boys, too, but they were so busy buzzing around like little hummingbirds that I couldn't get a clear shot of them! So, the new kids get the spotlight tonight!

They're so sleepy.

She fell asleep with her li'l beak on my finger!

Gotta fuel up if you're gonna produce that much cuteness!

Always got to be someone in the food dish, of course.

All six of the Cochin babies decided to come out! That Dorking looks HUGE next to them!

How many Cochins can fit in one dish?

How about Dorkings, too? (Oh, that sweet face! )

Thirsty peep-peep! Ahhhh...

They're still at the point where they're crashing hard when they go. Li'l Dorky just powered down.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Are you sleeping?

Peepers down!!

"Um, do you mind?"

Night-night li'l Dorking.

 

[itspebbl]

They are so cute!! I wonder what colors will pop up when you breed them with the silkied boys?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Honestly, I'm not sure! With the Silkieds throwing so many different colors of chick down, that tells me there's a lot of genes under the surface on them. It's hard to say what could be lurking with the Mottleds because they're based on extended black, which covers most other genes. My expectation for the first cross is to get overall black birds maybe with some red bleed-through (no mottling, because that gene is recessive), but from then on, it's kind of a wild card!

I haven't had the chance to look too closely yet, but it's looking like those Mottleds are all slow-feathering, so that gives me the opportunity for another potential test cross. If I get some slow-feathering pullets from them, I can cross them with Lucky or any of the three munchkin boys I just hatched, as I know they were all fast-feathering, and they should produce chicks that can be wing sexed. Interesting note, I'm not sure what all goes into that cross genetically because Nadine and Murphy were able to be wing sexed, and yet produced chicks that were also able to be wing sexed. Now, that could have been purely coincidental (although a mighty BIG coincidence at that!), but that's why slow-feathered Mottled pullet to fast-feathered Silkied boy would be more of a test cross for this.



I hear my peepers a'calling, so just a quick picture from the baby bin. Look who's already getting up onto the EcoGlow! And she's not ashamed, either, if that face is any indication!!

I'm working on names for those two since I already know they're pullets. All of my Silver Gray Dorkings have been named after the griffins in a two-book series that I read years ago, but I've used all of the griffin names from it now! There are other names in the book, but I'm not really sold on any of them except for Myrna, because I think that's an adorable name for one of these girls.

There's also the name Querida, which has been hit-or-miss whether I like it or not. Does Querida (keh-REE-dah) sound too similar to Perdita (per-DEE-tah)?

The other remaining feminine names that I can think of in the series, Mara, Shona, Olga, and Claudia, really don't do much for me at all. Oh, well! I guess I'll have to think about them for a while longer.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It occurred to me that I posted about a video of the boys buzzing around, but never posted it, so here it is! They look so tiny in this than they do now--guess I'll have to try and get some pictures of them today!

And a bonus video. We had corn on the cob the other night, and the girls got the leftovers, of course. Some slow motion, corn attacking action!

Pictures to come! I would like to try and get individual shots of the bitty Mottled Cochins before they get too big. We'll see about that!