She said/He said Who's right? Who's wrong? No one!

[AmyLynn2374]

 

[WVduckchick]

Good morning!

I had a fun evening with my chicks and ducks. I have a large pen, with a smaller pen next to it... to introduce birds to each other slowly. After the introduction of the 8 newest ones, they are all fine together now, so I cut a hole between the pens to let them have both sides. Well yesterday, I zipped the hole closed and put the lavender babies in the small pen, just to give them some time in the real outdoors! They had such fun! The older girls immediately ran to the adjoining fence to see what was new! It was so cute. Of course they lost interest quickly and everyone went on about their business. Then hubby decides to open the big pen and let the girls out into the main yard! Gemma, the turkey, was first out! Then all the girls followed her. Except the one smallest silkie. She could not seem to figure out how to get over the threshold! They wandered all around and went over to the duck pen and talked to the ducks a bit. Hubby and I (and the dogs) just sat and enjoyed the show....

 

[scflock]

He's pulling you in. I really need to find a life vest to throw to you.

Look who found a new pack of emojis

Too bad you're still losing the battle of words. With a redneck

Nothing like a quiet day in a tree stand, even if no shot is ever made. Well riding a motorcycle is about as close, I think. Alone with nothing else to get in your mind except what you are doing at that moment. I can forget everything else in my life when I'm in the woods or on the bike.


Nah! I still got your back, but after the day we had, it was pretty witty.....

I had a reply to this, then saw that Walnut Hill beat me to it

Even better is riding the bike in the woods. We just bought a pair of Honda dual sports that are street legal, great on trails, and capable in sand. And with hundreds of miles of trails on state land around our place up north, riding any kind of terrain is a blast. We tested their bog capability weekend before last (pretty good if there is a bottom).

I was going to say "Ride in the woods". There is nothing more fun than hopping on my KTM 300XC 2 stroke. All the torque of a 4 stroke, all the wrist snapping pop of a 2 stroke. There is no better feeling in the world than ripping through the single track on a dirt bike. Things happen too fast to think about anything but you and the bike

Hard yes boiled no it's a wooden egg from the hobby lobby my daughter painted it last night I asked her to do it looks so real I was amazed. she is a art major at MTSU. now lets talk about inbreeding Its not something I do as rule all birds & animal carry the DNA of their parents If your lucky you will come up with a nicer animal but in many cases Its proven to be a disaster the dwarf gene in black angus cattle Is the one that has haunted me the most. ever so often your are going to get a throwback or all the bad traits In one bird or flock . I'm sure that is why I have SLW's that lay odd shaped eggs that I can' sell .small in size . an long like a pullet egg would be but all the time . you think everything is great these are going to be the best yet .maybe they look beautiful but they are crazy or blind but their parent's are perfect not a flaw . but inside of them is a ticking time bomb and most likely will explode on me .this goes way beyond hatching. it's breeding at the hardest level .just remember that every thing that has every been done to that bird is in that DNA chain the good and the bad and at any time can come to the top. This is just my opinion why take the chance .find another breeder farther away. half across the country if need be order eggs an roll the dice. the ideal in breeding is to breed up not side ways. I have a SLW rooster that was the only chick that lived out of My first hatch last year the eggs came from some where up Walnut's way It was like $30 for the eggs And shipping which means with feed I have maybe a $100 in this bird I would have paid At least $50 without batting an eye for one If I could walk look at it full grown ready to breed. and I already see a better bird than I have now using only the best eggs from the bad hens .keep changing your rooster.I don't care what your hen's look like keep changing that roo for a better one breed to your old roos pullets breedup not sideways

You explained much better than I would have taken the time to type. Still, given what it sounds like she is going for, I think she would be ok to start the first generation sideways. It may take a little longer to work out any serious flaws, and they can stay hidden, but you can always single mate the second generation to see who is carrying what. It's just very time consuming. At least you know what you are working with. My problem with bringing in outside birds is possibly introducing another flaw from another flock

You should probably fix that door

(Yes, obviously I know what you meant, but I couldn't resist... Been one of those days.)

You've got a leftover Cadbury Chocolate Egg on a small tile?

Ok, you've been here long enough. You know the routine. It's for your own good...





Ok ladies and gentlemen, stand back







Not going to wind up too hard








It's your first offense










It's going to hurt me worse than it hurts you












Quit moving around

SC whats up my brother, I am typing this and throwing the boat rods in the 2500 and heading for blue water. Gonna see if we can get on some mahi and grouper today. Give you a report later. Been slammimg the last couple weeks.
Yall keep straight out there now you hear.

Mahi...

If I could only catch one fish for the rest of my life, that would be it. Gotta love the Stream in May!
How far do you have to run to hit the blue? The way SC is shaped, where I put in it's 72 miles from the shore line to the blue, around 85 to get to the ledge

Good morning!

 

[RubyNala97]

Line breeding is a good thing, and it's how you improve a flock, but it will also enhance undesirable traits if you don't cull birds with imperfections. It's good that you are asking these questions now, because your long term goals will affect the decisions you should make now. Siblings will breed each other, they don't care, but it doesn't damage the offspring like it does in humans, it just enhances the traits, good or bad. What do you want for yourself, and what do you want to sell? Do you want to improve on the qualities of your birds and breed towards selling them for show? Then you will have to separate the breeds and ruthlessly cull any imperfections. Pick the best rooster, and keep breeding him to the same hens and his pullets. That can get very involved, and is more than I do with all but 2 of my breeds. Do you just want pets, and to sell the extras as pet quality egg layers? Then keep the boys and girls you want and let them have at it. If you want pure breeds, then you still need to separate, but culling isn't necessary. You will wind up with too many roosters, no way around it, and that's another decision to make. Will you ever be able to butcher your own birds? If not, sell the roosters very cheaply, and don't ask the buyer what they are going to do with them. I advertise roosters $20 for 5, and they will sell within a week.
As far as getting eggs from the same man, surely he has more than one hen? I would still get my eggs from there.
I enjoy this discussion, because I have learned some of these things the hard way, so anyone lurking on the thread feel free to ask any question that you might think is "stupid". We all started somewhere

Thank you for this info. As I am in the same situation. Just starting my flock and really have to think about the things you mentioned. I have 2 chicks now, 12 more developing eggs. So obviously, I will have too many roosters. I won't kill them. I was thinking of just giving them away. But you said "sell". So do people buy roosters? It would be better to make a couple bucks rather then $0. They will be purebred silkie. I guess I can always try selling, then give away if that doesn't work. Thank you for the info.

My understanding of the line breeding/inbreeding to date has been that you can breed siblings, it's not as desirable and you don't want to keep breeding siblings generation after generation. It is more beneficial to linebreed father to daughter/son to mother and breed best of back to father and this can be done for more generations providing you are taking the best and seperating out undesirable traits.

Yes, we've had our share of "dog flippers" in our area. We have a couple animal rights group that will publically verbally go after these people if they see their ads, so we usually get an idea of who is doing it.

Funny thing. I can't invision myself killing an animal, but I'd probably change my tune if I had something going after my chickens...lol I was talking to my father the other day about predators and made the comment that when you raise chickens, loosing one here and there to predators is to be expected and that if you can't handle the loss then you have no business keeping chickens. I looked at my son and said, "Right? We can handle it if something happens and a predator gets a chicken, can't we?" He as serious as can be says, "Yup, but then we are gonna kill that animal that gets our chicken." lol

This is so funny that your son said that. I am trying to teach the children the same thing. That we may loose chickens & we may have to kill some.

There are several schools of thought about that.  The predator that kills one chicken will be back.  So, you can turn your coop/run into Fort Knox.  Or you can wait for the predator and then take him out.  Problem solved for the short term, until a new predator moves in to take over the hole left in the ecosystem by the one you just took out.  It becomes a repeating cycle.  I'm of the philosophy:  I'll do what I can to keep a strong perimiter, but ultimately, if it messes with my birds, I'm gonna take it out.

This has been the topic of conversation in my house for a week. The neighbor killed a raccoon because it ate some of his ducks. My mom used to be a wildlife Rehaber before she got sick. And her thoughts are, what if that predator you kill has babies out there that are waiting for their mom to return, if you kill her, you're killing all her babies too because they will starve. My solution, only kill the males!

Hard yes boiled no it's a wooden egg from the hobby lobby my daughter painted it last night I asked her to do it looks so real I was amazed. she is a art major at MTSU. now lets talk about inbreeding Its not something I do as  rule all birds & animal  carry the DNA of their parents If your lucky you will come up with a nicer animal but in many cases Its proven to be a disaster the dwarf  gene in black angus cattle Is the one that has haunted me the most. ever so often your are going to get a throwback or all  the bad traits In one bird or flock . I'm sure that is why I have SLW's that lay odd shaped eggs that I can' sell .small in size . an long like a pullet egg would be but all the time . you think everything is great these are going  to be the best yet .maybe they look beautiful but they are  crazy or blind but their parent's are perfect not a flaw . but inside of them is a ticking time bomb and most likely will explode on me .this goes way beyond  hatching. it's  breeding at the hardest level .just remember  that every thing that has every been done to that bird is in that DNA chain the good and the bad and at any time can come to the top. This is just my opinion why take the chance .find another breeder farther away. half across the country if need be order eggs an roll the dice. the ideal in breeding is to breed up not side ways. I have a SLW rooster that was the only chick that lived out of My first hatch last year the eggs came from some where up Walnut's way It was like $30 for the eggs And shipping which means with feed I have maybe a $100 in this bird I would have paid At least $50 without batting an eye for one If I could walk look at it full grown ready to breed. and I already see a better bird than I have now using only the best eggs from the  bad hens .keep changing your rooster.I don't care what your hen's look like keep changing that roo for a better one  breed to your old roos pullets breedup not sideways

This has been exactly what I have been thinking! I'm really kicking myself for ordering more eggs from the same breeder! Different colors though, so I'm hoping different genes. I think I found a good reason to order more eggs! I think I will order a few more from a different breeder, several states away. At least now I can hatch more!

 

[scflock]

Thank you for this info. As I am in the same situation. Just starting my flock and really have to think about the things you mentioned. I have 2 chicks now, 12 more developing eggs. So obviously, I will have too many roosters. I won't kill them. I was thinking of just giving them away. But you said "sell". So do people buy roosters? It would be better to make a couple bucks rather then $0. They will be purebred silkie. I guess I can always try selling, then give away if that doesn't work. Thank you for the info.

Oh, believe me, I have given a ton of roosters away, but I try to sell them first. Large, dual purpose breed roosters sell fairly easily, but silkies are a different story. Even Americans that will process heavy breeds to eat have a hard time doing the same with a silkie. When you get to the point that you just have way too many roosters, you either eat them yourself, or sell them to someone that will. That's just the nature of it. If it makes you squeamish, sell them cheaply several at a time, like 5 or 6 for $20, and don't ask any questions. Your best customers for silkie roosters? Asians and Mexicans. Seriously. Silkies are small, but a dark meat, and considered a delicacy in other parts of the world. I have 3 or 4 customers that I can call any time I have too many silkie roosters

 

[WVduckchick]

Oh, believe me, I have given a ton of roosters away, but I try to sell them first. Large, dual purpose breed roosters sell fairly easily, but silkies are a different story. Even Americans that will process heavy breeds to eat have a hard time doing the same with a silkie. When you get to the point that you just have way too many roosters, you either eat them yourself, or sell them to someone that will. That's just the nature of it. If it makes you squeamish, sell them cheaply several at a time, like 5 or 6 for $20, and don't ask any questions. Your best customers for silkie roosters? Asians and Mexicans. Seriously. Silkies are small, but a dark meat, and considered a delicacy in other parts of the world. I have 3 or 4 customers that I can call any time I have too many silkie roosters

I just can't imagine eating a silkie! The black skin would be weird....

 

[AmyLynn2374]

You explained much better than I would have taken the time to type. Still, given what it sounds like she is going for, I think she would be ok to start the first generation sideways. It may take a little longer to work out any serious flaws, and they can stay hidden, but you can always single mate the second generation to see who is carrying what. It's just very time consuming. At least you know what you are working with. My problem with bringing in outside birds is possibly introducing another flaw from another flock

I'm pretty sure that was the same sentement I gave in my description.....

Thank you for this info. As I am in the same situation. Just starting my flock and really have to think about the things you mentioned. I have 2 chicks now, 12 more developing eggs. So obviously, I will have too many roosters. I won't kill them. I was thinking of just giving them away. But you said "sell". So do people buy roosters? It would be better to make a couple bucks rather then $0. They will be purebred silkie. I guess I can always try selling, then give away if that doesn't work. Thank you for the info.
This is so funny that your son said that. I am trying to teach the children the same thing. That we may loose chickens & we may have to kill some.
This has been the topic of conversation in my house for a week. The neighbor killed a raccoon because it ate some of his ducks. My mom used to be a wildlife Rehaber before she got sick. And her thoughts are, what if that predator you kill has babies out there that are waiting for their mom to return, if you kill her, you're killing all her babies too because they will starve. My solution, only kill the males!

This has been exactly what I have been thinking! I'm really kicking myself for ordering more eggs from the same breeder! Different colors though, so I'm hoping different genes. I think I found a good reason to order more eggs! I think I will order a few more from a different breeder, several states away. At least now I can hatch more!

My first lot of roos I gave away. This second lot I sold with the extra pullets I decided I didn't want. I had ten birds, 4 of which I was sure were roos (6 weeks) and had someone take all 10. I ended up with $2 a bird and that's mixes. 2 I think were pure brown leghorns 1 male/1 female.
I was surprised my son had come to that conclusion so readily as he is an animal lover himself...lol

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I just can't imagine eating a silkie! The black skin would be weird....

Imagine eating an Ayam Cemani lol

 

[scflock]

sentement

It's sentiment, ya'll

 

[AmyLynn2374]

It's sentiment, ya'll

You keep correcting my spelling, I'm going to start correcting your redneck grammar!!