Red Laced Cornish X and project talk (pics p. 8)

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Hi KTCL,
That may be the gnats life span but if there is still a lot of running water they could have a second or third hatch. Once the water flow slows and the level drops the gnats will be gone until next year. Gnat eggs need a constant flow of water to keep them moist so Steve if you have large areas of standing water ask your local vector control for some mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis) to eat the free swimming larva. Dragon fly larva are also good at eating other larva and Gambusia fry when they are small.
I hope your hatches are 100%!
Joe

There was no standing water around here close, but flash floods left some today. One road leaving here had a foot of water over it. LOL It will be gone before mosquitoes hatch from it, barring more flash flooding in the next day or two. However, I'm just 1/4 mile off the Mississippi and its backwaters; mosquitoes have always been, and will always be, a problem........................... it's just worse in the wet springs.
I'll edit in some flooding pics from recent previous years in a bit.

Please let me know how many mosquito fish I should ask the local vector for under these conditions.
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This might appear to be a nice lake.
44349_flooded_irrigation_003.jpg


It's actually a cornfield [last year], near where I live, that usually needs irrigation, as the telephoto shows.
44349_flooded_irrigation_001.jpg


These are a few of the pictures I took in 2008.
The view from a river bluff in Henderson County. That distant row of trees on the horizon should be the banks of the Mississippi................. the water is covering several miles of farm ground, a highway, and some homes.
44349_flood2008_024.jpg


Traffic was light and nobody was enforceing the speed limit that day, but I decided to take another route..
44349_flood2008_029.jpg


I decided not to take this road either.
44349_flood2008_013.jpg


The good Lord was taking care of me that day. A railroad levee broke downstream soon after I took this picture, and the only road in or out to get this picture was flooded a couple of hours later. [I was just starting to think of the danger as I snapped the pic. I decided to head downstream for just a couple more pictures and met traffic speeding out................. shouting at me that the levee had broke. I turned around, thinking maybe a few inches of water might reach the road................... the next day I found out it was under 9 feet of flood water]
44349_flood2008_043.jpg
 
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I candled and went to lockdown a little early because my last three hatches started at 20 days. Six of seven WLRC eggs from the project pen have chicks in them; seven of seven from the Ameraucana pen also are good. I had mixed emotions. These are the first eggs coming from the gals under the two DCs that went to lockdown, so I'm elated.
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Since I now know those two, super thick guys were very capable of natural breeding, I'll miss their loss from my breeding pens even more.
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I so want these eggs to hatch!
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I have 14 more Ameraucana eggs and 7 from the project pen, due for lockdown next week; then 3 Ameraucana and 4 project eggs set 4 days later......................... but some of these were past a week old and/or appeared porous. I found eggs from the day my birds died, but had left them out in the heat for several days while I was trying to fight the buffalo gnats and clean up the mess......................... I decided to toss them rather than hold them till today and risk mixing possible spoiled eggs in the bator with those already developing.

Two eggs from my supposed {white Ameraucan roo x blue or black Ameraucana hens} hatched yellow with brown striped chicks with light colored shanks on my last two hatches. I finally double checked my calander, and saw I had allowed a little less than 3 weeks when I first started gathering. According to a breeder on the Ameraucana forum, Dark Cornish are "wheaten at the e-locus" [whatever that means
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] and the chicks are displaying characteristics consistant with a wheaten mix. There is some chance those DCs already sired a couple of chicks, because the hens were pulled from their pen when I decided the two guys were not getting the job done.
 
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Quote:
That's great!
How's the weather/flooding in your area? It doesn't look like the area will dry for some time.
We/NM sure could use some of your wet weather.
Stay safe,
Joe
 
Quote:
That's great!
How's the weather/flooding in your area? It doesn't look like the area will dry for some time.
We/NM sure could use some of your wet weather.
Stay safe,
Joe

Those pictures were from previous years. After the Mississippi broke through the levees in 2008, the Corps of Engineers was granted funding to strengthen them [though not make them taller]. This year they held locally, though of course that added to the problems downstream in Louisianna. However, we have Cedar, Henderson, North Henderson, and South Henderson creeks, as large as many rivers most people know, that flooded over their banks once the Mississippi hit flood stage.

After 2008, a few hundred acres of former crop land here in Henderson Co. was converted back to flood plain, with wetland trees planted on it, by our government; this catches much of the local flooding. The recent flash flooding was worse than I thought though, and there are several cornfields about a mile from here with large portions under water today. I do believe the cold flood water filling the creeks stopped the blackfly hatch, at least temporarily, but there are enough in the air to still be a nuisance.
 
I was extra grateful this Sabbath morning; all six WLRC eggs hatched last night. They are by the nice DCs I lost, but out of hatchery sourced hens [also gone]; it'll be awhile before I see how much frame and muscle was passed on, but I'm encouraged by the fact that those two guys I had were thicker in the breast and thigh than many other of the breeder's birds I've seen. They are, as expected, white laced reds; but should produce both white laced reds and darks [God willing that they live and reproduce].

Six of seven Ameraucanas have also hatched, the seventh I suspected was an early quitter when I candled it prior to lockdown. I'm super grateful that two are very clearly whites! My breeding pen had both whites and blue/black/splash hens; none of the chicks from my previous hatches appear to be white.

I visited Feathersite's Cornish page today; two of my chicks from previous hatches of Ameraucana eggs are marked exactly as the striped chicks towards the bottom of that site. It looks like I may have gotten crosses from the guys on my Ameraucanas after all. I had given up after getting many infertile eggs, and put the best 4 B/B/S hens under my White Ameraucana to make splits. I gathered eggs after only two and a half weeks due to a miscalculation, and it looks like they must have been carrying eggs fertlized by the DC.
 
Well we've had the traditional Memorial weekend snowstorms here in Northern Nevada. Fortunately, that means that spring might actually start coming later this week.
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Follwed by summer the week after!
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