thefadedstitch
Chirping
Roger, thank you. I keep missing details today...
SandHill Preservation review
- Thread starter CGilbert
- Start date
They don’t vaccinate for anything.
Update on my Sandhill order. We received chicks from the April 29 hatch. They arrived to us approx 17 hours after arrival at their PO, but we paid extra for Express service. They were in pretty good health. We received 28 chicks for our order of 25 chicks. Within the first week 3 passed away, so we were left with 25 chicks. We indicated subs ok for all the selections, and we gave a list of 5 acceptable subs.
Breed Ordered (# ordered) and # received and gender:
White Chantecler (2) received 1. Appears Female - harder to tell bc white and Chantecler have small to no wattles and very small combs.
Black Copper Maran (2) received 3. Two Female (one is "mossy" colored), One Male (currently hormonal and aggressive to some of the other hatch mates)
Blue Copper Maran (4) received 3. One Female (attractive and even coloring), Two males (one medium blue, and one Splash).
Gold Laced Wyandotte (4) Received 4. Two Female and Two Males. All are attractively laced, but one male has less than ideal lacing, but the other 3 appear to be of at least decent quality lacing and combs are all very nicely shaped rose combs. We gave one male to the neighbor, who plopped him directly into his young flock of Brown Leghorns that were not yet laying (but older than the GLW male). That male has some good chicken instincts - he was able to properly evade the top girls and now is integrated well and just started to crow at 16 weeks. The male we kept has not crowed but we have an 18 month top rooster. We will keep this one GLW male out of all the Sandhill males.
Creme Legbar (2) received 3. All Female. All variable in overall size and in the tuft on top of head. One has a bad eye (it is opaque), and gets pecked on side of face with good eye, so currently in isolation to get the spot healed and hopefully not pecked anymore. These girls are not the top of the pecking order, but seem to do OK. They are quite chatty now, so curious as to how chatty they will be when they start to lay.
Blue Ameraucana (2) Got 1 BLACK Ameraucana (shipping form said we got 2 Blues, but we did not, or the other one was one of the ones that died the first week). This one is male. He is attractive and evenly colored with some nice cheek tufts. Seems to be integrated well and minds his manners.
Salmon Faverolle (2) Received 2. Both Female! They are fairly light in color (certainly much lighter than the SF female from Meyer hatchery we got as a chick in late 2018). One is particularly attractive, although not quite as light as some pics that can be found on the internet, but seems to conform to standard.
Redcap (2) Possibly received 2, but we only have 1 in the flock. Possibly one of the chicks that died was this one, or was the Ameraucana bc only 1 dark chick died. This one is female! She is VERY friendly and curious. Really a great little chicken with regards to personality, and she knows her name "Rosie" - she has responded to her name since she was 6 weeks old! Would definitely consider more of these. Wonder if @Finnie has similarly good natured Redcaps.
Erminettes (4) received 5. Two died the first week, I think - we only have 3 of these. They are all male. Only ONE has the proper Erminette coloring - but he is very attractive and has the proper 15% approx black feathers. Of the chicks that died (assuming they were Erminettes), neither of those exhibited any black fluff, so not sure if they would have feathered out with any black. The two white Male Erminettes are aggressive to their flockmates and we will not keep them. We will also get rid of the proper colored Erminette as we do not have any females of this breed. All three males are quite large - they are the largest of all the Sandhill males (maybe BJG is very slightly bigger)
Rose Comb Rhode Island Red (did not order these - they were on our sub list and indicated as shipped on our shipped form that came with the order). Received 2 and both are Female! They seem to have a good personality - I know RIR tend to have a bad rap with regards to flock interaction, but these 2 girls do not cause any trouble so far...we will see how it goes when they begin to lay.
Surprise! Black Jersey Giant. Although this was on our sub list, it was not indicated on our shipped form that came with the order. This single bird is male. He does not cause any trouble in the flock. He looks generally good with regards to breed standard. He is fairly large (but not any bigger than some of the other Sandhill males of same hatch/different breeds), and he has nicely yellow feet bottoms, but his tail is not quite right - there are a couple of longer feathers in his tail, but a JG should have a wide spreading tail, with more evenly dispersed longer feathers, but not as long as the "classic" rooster look. We have BJG from another source and our Rooster and hen are very large, and the new BJG chicks from this other source (age 4 weeks) are uniquely large and gangly in appearance as expected. We will not keep this BJG as we like our BJG from our other source better.
Surprise! Black Breasted Red Kraienkoppe (its our best guess from their website and from other BYCers based on pics). We did not order this, and it was not on our sub list. Female! She is small and trim looking, she is a pretty good flyer she trying to catch her, but she never flies out of the enclosure as a couple of our other birds. Seems to be integrated well.
Would I order from Sandhill again? Yes. They have some interesting breeds, and offer them at a reasonable cost. They were pretty responsive to any emails I sent. The downside is that the smallest order is 25 minimum. So, I will not be able to order from them anytime soon. Maybe a late summer order next year is the soonest I could envision having space for 25 chicks.
Breed Ordered (# ordered) and # received and gender:
White Chantecler (2) received 1. Appears Female - harder to tell bc white and Chantecler have small to no wattles and very small combs.
Black Copper Maran (2) received 3. Two Female (one is "mossy" colored), One Male (currently hormonal and aggressive to some of the other hatch mates)
Blue Copper Maran (4) received 3. One Female (attractive and even coloring), Two males (one medium blue, and one Splash).
Gold Laced Wyandotte (4) Received 4. Two Female and Two Males. All are attractively laced, but one male has less than ideal lacing, but the other 3 appear to be of at least decent quality lacing and combs are all very nicely shaped rose combs. We gave one male to the neighbor, who plopped him directly into his young flock of Brown Leghorns that were not yet laying (but older than the GLW male). That male has some good chicken instincts - he was able to properly evade the top girls and now is integrated well and just started to crow at 16 weeks. The male we kept has not crowed but we have an 18 month top rooster. We will keep this one GLW male out of all the Sandhill males.
Creme Legbar (2) received 3. All Female. All variable in overall size and in the tuft on top of head. One has a bad eye (it is opaque), and gets pecked on side of face with good eye, so currently in isolation to get the spot healed and hopefully not pecked anymore. These girls are not the top of the pecking order, but seem to do OK. They are quite chatty now, so curious as to how chatty they will be when they start to lay.
Blue Ameraucana (2) Got 1 BLACK Ameraucana (shipping form said we got 2 Blues, but we did not, or the other one was one of the ones that died the first week). This one is male. He is attractive and evenly colored with some nice cheek tufts. Seems to be integrated well and minds his manners.
Salmon Faverolle (2) Received 2. Both Female! They are fairly light in color (certainly much lighter than the SF female from Meyer hatchery we got as a chick in late 2018). One is particularly attractive, although not quite as light as some pics that can be found on the internet, but seems to conform to standard.
Redcap (2) Possibly received 2, but we only have 1 in the flock. Possibly one of the chicks that died was this one, or was the Ameraucana bc only 1 dark chick died. This one is female! She is VERY friendly and curious. Really a great little chicken with regards to personality, and she knows her name "Rosie" - she has responded to her name since she was 6 weeks old! Would definitely consider more of these. Wonder if @Finnie has similarly good natured Redcaps.
Erminettes (4) received 5. Two died the first week, I think - we only have 3 of these. They are all male. Only ONE has the proper Erminette coloring - but he is very attractive and has the proper 15% approx black feathers. Of the chicks that died (assuming they were Erminettes), neither of those exhibited any black fluff, so not sure if they would have feathered out with any black. The two white Male Erminettes are aggressive to their flockmates and we will not keep them. We will also get rid of the proper colored Erminette as we do not have any females of this breed. All three males are quite large - they are the largest of all the Sandhill males (maybe BJG is very slightly bigger)
Rose Comb Rhode Island Red (did not order these - they were on our sub list and indicated as shipped on our shipped form that came with the order). Received 2 and both are Female! They seem to have a good personality - I know RIR tend to have a bad rap with regards to flock interaction, but these 2 girls do not cause any trouble so far...we will see how it goes when they begin to lay.
Surprise! Black Jersey Giant. Although this was on our sub list, it was not indicated on our shipped form that came with the order. This single bird is male. He does not cause any trouble in the flock. He looks generally good with regards to breed standard. He is fairly large (but not any bigger than some of the other Sandhill males of same hatch/different breeds), and he has nicely yellow feet bottoms, but his tail is not quite right - there are a couple of longer feathers in his tail, but a JG should have a wide spreading tail, with more evenly dispersed longer feathers, but not as long as the "classic" rooster look. We have BJG from another source and our Rooster and hen are very large, and the new BJG chicks from this other source (age 4 weeks) are uniquely large and gangly in appearance as expected. We will not keep this BJG as we like our BJG from our other source better.
Surprise! Black Breasted Red Kraienkoppe (its our best guess from their website and from other BYCers based on pics). We did not order this, and it was not on our sub list. Female! She is small and trim looking, she is a pretty good flyer she trying to catch her, but she never flies out of the enclosure as a couple of our other birds. Seems to be integrated well.
Would I order from Sandhill again? Yes. They have some interesting breeds, and offer them at a reasonable cost. They were pretty responsive to any emails I sent. The downside is that the smallest order is 25 minimum. So, I will not be able to order from them anytime soon. Maybe a late summer order next year is the soonest I could envision having space for 25 chicks.
Nope.
Mine are crazy flighty and struggle mightily if they need to get caught. I’ve sold them all off except for one male and one or two females. I’m not very happy with them, but I still haven’t given up on seeing if their offspring might turn out better. But I bred other breeds this year so redcaps have to wait until next year. If I don’t sell the last ones.
Too bad! Not sure why ours has been so friendly...the friendliest bird we’ve experienced so far. She isn’t flighty at all, often let’s us catch her (but not always), and is generally calm but very curious. We will see if she is the same once she begins to lay (she is 16 weeks old). So, maybe any offspring of yours might exhibit similar traits. Good luck if you breed some next year!
I just got a check from sandhill, they could not get any blue orps to hatch. Another bad year for them.they are honest but don5 counting gettin* chicks from them.
slutter
Songster
Anyone get marans from them? Black copper? Just curious about egg color... Also anyone have experience getting blr wyndots black minorca's or lavender ameraucanas
We got Black and Blue copper Marans from an April 29 hatch. We ended up with 50:50 M:F We have 3 females- 2 Black, 1 blue. The 1st to lay was age 22 weeks old, which is apparently on the early side. The second to lay began at 24 weeks old. The third has an egg as dark as the second one, so I don't know when exactly when she started to lay bc I don't think we realized she was laying yet bc the eggs were the same color. Here are the two shades we get:
Two of the girls lay this dark (no enhancements or corrections to this photo)
One lays a bit lighter, but still a darker brown than my other girls as seen in the pic. The Marans egg has the straw stuck to it.
Of the males, we ended up with a Black, a Blue, and a Splash. They matured fairly early - certainly earlier than other males in the same hatch. We ended up selling those at an auction bc we had a different male we wanted to keep and already had a head rooster.
In the same batch we also got GLW, and ended up with 2M, 2F. They are nicely sized and full looking, their lacing is quite nice, and combs so far are looking good/nicely shaped. Wyandottes get a bad rap for attitude it seems, but the ones we got haven't caused any problems in the flock. We kept one GLW male and he is hormonal, but has not been human aggressive, and while he does chase the girls to try to mount, he will takes his punishment/reprimands from the older hens or head rooster and leaves their area and does not try to continue the fight or aggression (at that time). the Female GLW cause no problems in the flock either. We gave the other male to the neighbor and that GLW is the only male in the flock, but has been a good cockerel and has been working his way to the top of the hierarchy of pullets that are older than he is. I know you are interested in the BLRW, but at least with the GLW, I'm seeing many positives.
Last year I sent in my order in Dec. my order indicated subs ok for all, had a sub list on there. Also I indicated any ship date ok. They had March as first shipping dates available (I recall, and don’t think it was Feb). However, horrible winter of ‘18-19 caused delays for them and their first chicks were sent out in Early April, I think. So, even though I had a very open order, I didn’t get chicks till their 3rd actual hatch I think, which leads me to believe I was order # x behind however many others.
they have a news and updates section of their website. A recent update indicated they will be selecting their breeders soon for their chicken pens, in prep for 2020 hatching. At that time I would expect them to update their website and add/remove notes around “unavailable for year x -rebuilding numbers”. Personally, I would wait to see this bc then I could tailor my order.
orders are all by snail mail. Fill out paper form, send in a check. They will update you later via snail mail. My order went in late Dec, they sent me order confirmation in Jan. They are a small staffed operation, so this is what works for them. For me, appreciate the many breeds they offer for a relatively low cost per chick. Appreciate their focus on heritage type breeds.
good luck! Hopefully you get some chickens that are awesome!
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