Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

It is, FINALLY, the winter solstice!

C'mon girls; I need some eggs!

Tax: Neath, SFH x silver duckwing Welsumer behind; Teifi, SFH x I'm not sure what, in front

 

[Perris]

BTW, little concrete takeaway from all my genetics reading is that yellow skin on chickens comes from the grey jungle fowl. Some of mine have really, really yellow legs. I wonder if the GJF runs strongly in their family (with apologies to Star Wars fans).

 

[MaryJanet]

It is, FINALLY, the winter solstice!

C'mon girls; I need some eggs! View attachment 2935217
Tax: Neath, SFH x silver duckwing Welsumer behind; Teifi, SFH x I'm not sure what, in front

Shush, because it's summer solstice for some of us! Or it will be on the 22nd.

 

[Perris]

sorry!

 

[Solanacae]

It is, FINALLY, the winter solstice!

C'mon girls; I need some eggs! View attachment 2935217
Tax: Neath, SFH x silver duckwing Welsumer behind; Teifi, SFH x I'm not sure what, in front

I am playing the same waiting game with two of my pullets!

 

[Solanacae]

No, not really. There are so many variables.
However, often inter flock problems are from mixing breeds. Mixing crested breeds with normal can cause problems. There are too many combinations that may cause problems to go through here.
My uncle didn't mix his free range chickens.
Most of the people I knew in Catalonia didn't mix breeds and if they did they were quite careful about which breeds they mixed.
Large free range flock keepers tend not to mix breeds.
Most of the serious breeders I've know don't mix breeds.
In the other countries I've been to or know something about their chicken keeping arrangements breed mixing isn't common.
One reason is of course that the vast variety of breeds isn't availible to them.
For most there is no breeder to hatchery, hatchery to local store chain set up to cater for the backyard chicken keeping movement and none that I've spoken to would even consider buying a chicken from a hatchery.
Most chickens are bought from farms/smallholders/specialist breeders unless of course you are in the business of themass production of meat and eggs.
Why would you buy chicken of unkown provenance from some far of place of a type that may not be the right type of chicken to thrive in the environment one wishes to keep it in. It's a recipe for a disaster.

I was really happy to find a lady close by who breeds quality chickens. I didn’t love going to feed stores to get chicks, but when I first started, I didn’t know anywhere else to go. Those two ISA’s I have were from a feed store, but I couldn’t find any chicks elsewhere from a source I trusted. There are plenty of people around here that trade chickens around seemingly without much care for disease. The hatchery chicks, I figured would be at least a little tighter in biosecurity, though reading some of the articles on this thread, I wonder if that’s really the case. Is it any different with chicks as opposed to meat/egg hens?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

are you after campines (which come in gold or silver varieties) or SFH (which lack a recognized standard, though they're trying to preserve existing lines in Sweden)? If the former I can't answer; if the latter, the only appearance most of them have in common is the white tips or spots on the feathers, and that feature becomes apparent over time in muted form in their hybrid offspring, whether the base colour is black or brown and the skin colour white or yellow.

The SFH. I have a place I'm ordering from that offers both silver and gold bases.

 

[Solanacae]

I’m sure I owe tax at this point.
1. Fluffy butts all in a row (LtoR: Desdemona, Cannonball, Fluffy)
2. Chicks (Goldilocks and Ginger) with mama (Caramel). Peanut is on the left.
3. Desdemona looking nice now that she’s almost done molting.

 

[Pippin quail]

I am playing the same waiting game with two of my pullets!

I have 18 ladies of various ages and have been lucky if I get 1 egg a day. At the most.

Tax

 

[Ribh]

I’m sure I owe tax at this point.
1. Fluffy butts all in a row (LtoR: Desdemona, Cannonball, Fluffy)
2. Chicks (Goldilocks and Ginger) with mama (Caramel). Peanut is on the left.
3. Desdemona looking nice now that she’s almost done molting.

Oooooh! I have a Desdemona too.