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

[WVduckchick]

I do already have a list going with several who have PM'd me. I can already see some good and fair swaps! It wont be up to me, I'm not trying to control it, just coordinate it. So those that think their birds aren't good enough, that's bulls&*t. Some are looking just to participate and get some different breeds. No one is asking for perfect quality because we know no one has it to offer. If you want perfection, BUY them somewhere else.

Please PM me if you want on the list. If you want to make personal deals with whoever, that's fine, just keep that between yourselves. When I get a list that I think includes most people who act interested, I'll send it to everyone in one PM (PMs are limited to 9 people though, so I might have to make 2 groups, unless I ask for an exception)

 

[lazy gardener]

If needed, an exception would be nice in this case, so we can have all the info in one place. Also, one thought that has not been tossed out there... may be good, or may not be so good: Perhaps you have a neighbor or friend who has some eggs that would be a nice addition. Just for grins and giggles: Someone gave me a $10 gift certificate to a local "granola" health food store. I think I may use it this spring to buy a dozen eggs out of their refrigerator case to try to hatch.

 

[WalnutHill]

Good breakdown and explanation... still out of Ovations, lol...

That 'splatter egg' I know what that is... I had a pullet doing that for a while, but she stopped as she matured and things got working right... they're dropping 2 eggs down the shute together... they start to form squished together, but pull apart and finish hardening separate... I always said it looked like a large stylized bullet hole, lol...

That's a great explanation. Next time I spot one, I will try to remember to watch the next day to see if its twin was laid. Thanks!

 

[WalnutHill]

It would be so nice to have an egg swap here. There is one on Facebook for Michigan but it is a SWAP and if the person you want to get eggs from doesn't want what you have, you are SOL.

One thing that may help is a "credits" system. For instance, my mutt chicken eggs are worth 1 credit per egg. Purebred RIR, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Silkie or other pure bred common breeds could be 2 credits. Specialty chickens like LO, BCM, CL, real AM could be 3 credits. 4 credits for BLRW, Tolbunt Polish, or other hard to get variants. Ayam Cemani or some of the other really out there breeds more credits. Credits could also be assigned a dollar value, so that people who want eggs early in the season can get them in the incubator before their own birds start laying.

Essentially, each contributor could post the credit value of what they have, and another contributor could bid to accept them either by using cash equivalent or trade credits. Then the original contributor could select from all the available eggs to obtain what they want using the credits from the first transaction. That way someone who has and wants turkeys could trade with someone who has turkeys and wants ducks.

A credit system would allow people who get many dozens of eggs a day to trade with people who have a flock of 6 mixed chickens, or mixed ducks and turkeys, etc. It would let someone who has 50 RIR to swap eggs to get some BLRW, because someone else may want RIR. And it would help keep eggs affordable, as overpriced eggs won't have many takers.

This may be WAY too much work for a ship-a-thon but wouldn't it be nice to be able to trade with little cash changing hands and with a trade counter to track credits earned and spent?

 

[chicapee]

Well, ya got all that lavender going on now... lol...

btw, any of the Am's looking skimpy on the beards??

I will try and get pics tomorrow, I am not sure what I am looking for with the beards. They might be to little to tell yet. Do you have a pic so I can see what I am looking for?

Life story, huh? C'mon, all I said in Oz's thread was how I found it (not exactly relevent here) and stuff that I'd said here, just more spread out.

But hey, I'll give you my life story. Sit back, and prepare to be BORED...

Now, I don't see much point in telling stuff that happened before I was old enough to remember, 'cept that Mom and Dad divorced when I was still in diapers, early-mid Seventies. My first actual memory has been dated for me as the day before Mom married my stepdad, Daddy Bob--a month before my 3rd birthday. Now, who here remembers Wonder Horses? For those that don't (and for dan, who I'd be surprised if he's seen a *real* one unless it was at a second-hand store or in an attic somewhere) they were plastic horses held in a metal framework with springs, that you rode by bouncing. The one I had was a bit big for me--the only way I could get off by myself was by sliding over the tail. Well, this day, my timing was evidently off, and my right upper incisor met the crest of the tail. The tail won. Now, the part that probably isn't a real first-hand memory, but simply ingrained by hearing the story so often--since I was bleeding, I insisted on Bactine and a bandaid. Got quite upset when my demands weren't met, I'm sure. My aunt tells me that, for the next few years, she was asked if I was a little slow. Understandable--a bright 3/4/5-year-old is a bit smaller and less advanced than you expect a child who is missing an upper incisor to be.

My Dad remarried when I was around 4, I think. All I really remember of the wedding was that it was an outdoor wedding at Grandma and Grandpa Hopper's house, it rained, and my soon-to-be-and-now-ex stepsisters and I were all wearing the same dress, a red calico sleeveless sundress. Whether we were part of the wedding party or not, I have no idea, though, if I was 4, then the others were 6 and 2, maybe not. In hindsight, I know I was fortunate--my parents got along with each other and with their ex's spouses, and my stepparents also got along. If not, they did a pretty darn good job of simulating it for over a decade, so that's good enough for me.

My half-brother was born 2 weeks after my 5th birthday. We later learned that there were excessive amounts of manganese in the water where we lived when Mom was pregnant with him, and up until he was 2. This caused physical brain damage in Toby. We also learned that the developers knew of the manganese. I'm not going to go any further with that now, because I'll get all ranty and totally derailed from my life story, and I haven't even hit 2 digits yet.

All through school, I was convinced I was ugly. In fact, almost the only long-running argument I had with Mom is that she tried to convince me I was not. But thick glasses since 2nd grade and an overbite severe enough that I could fit my thumb in sideways between the back of my top front teeth and the front of my bottom teeth (I wasn't a thumb-sucker, this was just done for measurement purposes--actual measurement at age 14 was 14mm) conspired against her. Even now, well past orthdontics and with contacts (or glasses not from the early '80s) I have to be in the right frame of mind to really see myself as attractive. Probably one reason I have trouble seeing it when people say my older daughter looks just like me--we're going to be beating boys off with sticks here pretty darn soon.

We moved a lot when I was a kid--I went to 3 different schools in 3rd grade--yet I wasn't a military brat (usually the first question asked when I mention the lots-of-moving). I'm guessing that more outgoing people would learn to make friends quickly under such circumstances. I went the opposite direction--why bother when I'd be leaving them behind forever anyway? Oh, don't get me wrong--I had friends, just not lots, and not generally close. Granted, part of that was due to being the non-disabled sibling, but most was due to shyness (huge shocker there, I know). Just about all my birthdays were family-only--since my birthday is 3 days after Christmas, I was generally hundreds of miles away from home with the other side of the family.

Baba (my maternal grandfather) lost the battle with lung cancer when I was in 7th or 8th grade.

At the end of 8th grade, we moved from Salem, Oregon (yes, I need to specify which Salem--I can think of at least 4 in the US ) to Crescent City, California, thus enabling me to say that I remember a lot of businesses that haven't been around for decades, and making me one of those annoying people that can give directions by saying stuff like, "Turn at where thus-and-such used to be." Took me ages to call Ocean World, Ocean World, instead of the old name, though I still think of it mostly by the old name. I'm still not sure what is where The Tired Chicken used to be--it's either an insurance office or a barber shop--I'm not often at that particular part of town, and it's changed so often.

The end of that summer, it was decided that I'd switch to living with Dad so I could get my overbite taken care of. My stepmom worked for the state of Oregon, and her health insurance would cover me if I was living with them. So I moved, and instead of living with Mom and Daddy Bob and Toby and visiting Dad, Wendy, Connie, and Tammy for summers and such (and weekends when we weren't hundreds of miles away), 'twas the other way 'round. Fortunately, at that time, Greyhound still actually came to Crescent City.

I lived with Dad, Wendy, and the girls the first two years of highschool, then Dad and Wendy got divorced towards the end of my sophomore year. I finished out the school year at Stayton Union, then moved back with Dad after my summer visit to Mom and them (Dad had moved out before the end of the school year and moved to Salem). Finished highschool at Sprague in Salem as part of the 20th graduating class in 1992. I didn't really do much in highschool--I was the teen that avoided the crowds in the lunchroom by reading in the library and then eating a huge lunch once I got home from school. Didn't do much homework--I did really well in classes that had tests weighted heavily, and less well in classes that had outside work. I still remember that in Genetics, the teacher changed the weighting of a project I never got around to doing, and lowered the importance of the tests we'd been taking all along--my grade went from an A to a C. Whoops...

After highschool, I bounced between my Grandma's and my Dad's for almost a year (with the summer and Christmas down at Mom's) for almost a year, then I moved back in with Mom. I was finally able to get a job at the video department of a local grocery store, which lasted until the video department closed about 9 months later (there were 8 video rental places within 2 square miles). During that time, on a family trip, I had a full-blown seizure in the back seat of the car. We happened to be going by a town with a hospital right then, so I was taken into the ER (by that time, I was conscious, but still a little fuzzy). They did a CAT scan and couldn't find anything. Nothing unusual, that is

They did give me some antibiotics for a sinus infection they saw forming that hadn't manifested yet, so I suppose the time wasn't completely wasted... Now, since my freshman year at highschool, I'd been found collapsed in the hallway after PE (I still say I'd just passed out from low blood sugar--I hadn't eaten that morning, and that day we did these horrible circuit things that wiped me out even when I'd eaten a lot beforehand--and the "convulsions" were probably me trying to get up after becoming semi-conscious), this was technically my second seizure... Anyway, a week or two after the car trip--just enough time for my bitten tongue to be almost finished healing--I was called in to work on my day off. I told the manager I wasn't feeling well, but there was no one else available, and I was told I could just sit and man the video register--I didn't have to do any of the other stuff I'd normally be doing. So I went in, and a little while later, I was coming to behind the counter with the manager standing over me. Evidently, I'd disappeared, and was found when she'd come over to page me. If I remember right no seizure activity was witnessed, but since I'd bitten my tongue in the exact same spot, I probably had had another seizure. Since I had two seizures in less than two weeks, it was off to a neurologist for me. I was still on my dad's insurance, so I needed to go up to Salem. Even if I'd gotten around to getting my driver's license by this point, I wouldn't've driven myself--a 6 hour drive by myself when I'd been having seizures would've been just plain stupid. No reason was found for my seizures after MRIs and EEGs and blood tests, so I was just told that I had epilepsy and was given an anticonvulsant--which worked great for me with no side effects, and all my monitoring blood tests while I was on it came back with no problems, so yay.

After the video department at ShopSmart closed, I did some jobhunting, but wasn't particularly successful. So I started classes at CR, the local community college. There, I met the man that was to become my husband.

Oo, and I get to tell the story the long way, and nobody can stop me. Mwahahahahaha!

So, I was going to CR, and it turned out that the group in charge of Earth Day activities at the college was meeting in one of my classrooms just before my class. I figured I'd go ahead and get to campus about half an hour early on meeting days and help figure out what we were going to do. We ended up organizing a poetry reading in the library. After lots of organizing, the day came. Since I'd helped with the set up, I figured I might as well stay for the reading, even though I've never really been a fan of poetry. Being there early meant that I was able to snag a seat on one of the couches instead of one of the folding chairs, though the couches were along the wall, and so one needed to sit a little sideways to see the speaker. I was sitting on the side of the couch closer to the front. This young, skinny guy came along later and sat next to me. I was slouched a little forward, and saw him out of the corner of my eye bend a bit forward, too. I started kind of shifting back and forth, watching to see if he did, too. by the end of the event, I wasn't sure if he had been looking at me or trying to see around me. Found out later that he was just trying to see... Anyway, a few weeks later was a school picnic (small community college) with a talent show. I managed to slip a note to the guy, who happened to win a couple of movie passes in the talent show later. We went out. After we'd been going out for a couple of weeks, I found out that I was 4 years older than Tom. I was 21. Therefore, I was paranoid until his birthday 6 months later (which he still thinks is ridiculous--technically, though, I could've been in trouble...) Shortly after his birthday, Tom proposed. I said yes. We were engaged for about a year and a half, and got married after getting our Associate degrees. My dad died a couple weeks before the wedding--he'd had MS that had taken forever and multiple biopsies to diagnose after it suddenly manifested. He was 49.

We'd planned to go to Victoria, British Columbia for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I lost my wallet about 5 days before the wedding. So we went to the San Juan Islands, instead. On a whale-watching trip, we ended up in Canadian waters anyway--the only time I've been out of the US. After the honeymoon, we started the school year at HSU, down in Arcata.

OK, so I've only gotten to age 23 (1997), so this isn't my whole life story, but I'm already almost 700 posts from when I decided to do this so I'll just write a quick summary of the important stuff so I can be done!

Graduated HSU December 1999, with a BA in Studio Arts. Haven't done real art since. Moved to Redding.

April of 2000, Mom died of brain cancer, which presented itself quite quickly. 9 months from a clear MRI after sudden seizures to an MRI showing a tumor that looked like someone poured tar into her brain, filling convolutions. Inoperable. Some ugly stuff surrounding. So I was an orphan at 26. Mom was 52.

April 2001, moved to Sacramento because I got a job with the State Treasurer's Office.

July of 2001, I found a website that I'm still part of, h2g2. The chicken articles I've written, both the big ol' overview one and the personal account one, are both posted to there. Thanks to h2g2, I have friends on every continent except South America and Antarctica, though most are in the UK.

Late July/early August 2002, first ever flight to meet some folks from h2g2. First time on the East Coast (landed in NY, meet-up in Lancaster, PA). Went to Hershey Park, found out why everyone told me I was crazy for going to Pennsylvania for an outdoor activity in August. Was assured by locals it was less humid than usual, due to drought...

July 2003, on the anniversary of my joining h2g2, no less, Faith was born. Online, she is also known as PaperKid (originally PaperBaby). She's starting a blog right now--the first post isn't written yet, but she is getting the About Me bit written (nice and anonymous).

March 2004, lost Daddy Bob. He was 74. No one had expected him to outlive Mom.

March 2005, lost Grandma.

December 2005, moved to Klamath.

May 2006, moved to Crescent City.

September 2006, started working for the school district as an IA (temporary until January 2007, permanent since.)

Summer 2007 started househunting.

February 2009, Kenna Grace (goes by Grace--Kenna is for my dad, Kenneth, who went by his middle name, Edmund--could not think of a not-ugly way to feminize Edmund) is born. Known as Notepad online.

April 2012, finally got the keys to the house we'd finally found that we could actually get a large enough loan for.

Summer 2013--Tom mentions maybe getting chickens. I start researching, then converting an outbuilding...

October 2013, get our first hens.

2014-2015 school year, 4 different teachers. Not a fun school year.

September 14, 2015, Frieda lays first post-broody egg!

Thank you so very much for sharing. You have had a lot of sadness, sorry for that.

I must thank you guys for this thread. It has given me hope that I might be able to hatch my own eggs soonish. Between this thread and the "Great egg shipping experiment" I am starting to feel more comfortable ordering/incubating eggs!

Welcome to crazy land!

Oh Ruby, you have got to be kidding!

Are the LOs alot bigger than the other chicks? Post some pics when you get a chance please! I love seeing others LOs.

Yes they are about 3 times the size. I have some pics on my phone i will post later. Have to use pc for multi. I think I have 3 boys and 1 girl.

FYI I am going to have a simple

HATCH-A-LONG
with a set date for standard chicken eggs on October 10th, working on a thread later today, and will check with Nifty to be sure I can run a few contests if we get a few donations. And some extra Sally Sunshine fun along the way. I will need some helpers for a few things, so message me if you want to help or if you have some cool Halloween ideas!

Love, hugs and blessings....
Sally Sunshine

I would love to join but I have put all equipment away until 2016. I will have to lurk.

Check out the wings on these babies! One week old.
First 2 pics are the same golden sebright.
Last 3 pics are the silver sebright/birchen modern game cross. That chick is totally black except for a little gray around the eyes. Don't know what it will grow out like (seeing as I was hoping for pure sebright and didn't get it), but so far, its gorgeous!

Gorgeous wings look like lace.

A couple of years ago, I was intrigued with the Legbars. They were stupid expensive then. Did some reading and found that one with a few resources for breeding pens could create their own Legbar, or any other ---- bar in about 3 generations. Since then, due to hearing that they're a bit flighty, not to mention their big combs, I'm focusing on breeding my own "land race" flock that will do well in my climate. I'm focusing on small combs, colorful eggs, less flighty disposition. My last season of birds, in retrospect, all but one could be gender id'd at hatch based on leg color, comb color, and feather pattern. Interesting, b/c I have one breeding rooster, and about 6 different breeds in the mix.

Count me in for the ship-a-thin. I'm offering: 10# of persistent belly roll. Has stayed the course for the last 21 years. Frequently increases in vigor during the winter months. Impervious to short term attempts to rein it in.

Tomorrow is lockdown for me, I'm getting nervous! Lol

Take a deep breathe and enjoy!

"taken" could be a loose term, too. I try to be very upfront with my birds, but say someone wanted eggs from my silkies and I sent them some. You guys have seen them. They are cute, but nowhere in the realm of SOP. If they got my birds, then posted pictures on a silkie breeding thread and said "Look what I got from scflock!", my reputation could be ruined in a heartbeat. Anyone that participates in the shipathon needs to understand that we are just friends swapping eggs, we aren't promising SQ. My chickens are spoiled, and live in great conditions, but Fabio ain't goin' to no shows

I am really interested in learning how to pack for best results too!

Catching up... gonna take a bit and will prolly be a horrible multi-quote too, lol...
Good pics... those are going into lockdown tomorrow though? To me, the air cells look a bit small, my suggest is not to increase humidity til first pip, but others might have different advice...

x's 2

I have no experience with shipped eggs. Is that what it does to air cells? I've never seen uneven lines like that

Unless they are from Ravyn.

It would be so nice to have an egg swap here. There is one on Facebook for Michigan but it is a SWAP and if the person you want to get eggs from doesn't want what you have, you are SOL.

One thing that may help is a "credits" system. For instance, my mutt chicken eggs are worth 1 credit per egg. Purebred RIR, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Silkie or other pure bred common breeds could be 2 credits. Specialty chickens like LO, BCM, CL, real AM could be 3 credits. 4 credits for BLRW, Tolbunt Polish, or other hard to get variants. Ayam Cemani or some of the other really out there breeds more credits. Credits could also be assigned a dollar value, so that people who want eggs early in the season can get them in the incubator before their own birds start laying.

Essentially, each contributor could post the credit value of what they have, and another contributor could bid to accept them either by using cash equivalent or trade credits. Then the original contributor could select from all the available eggs to obtain what they want using the credits from the first transaction. That way someone who has and wants turkeys could trade with someone who has turkeys and wants ducks.

A credit system would allow people who get many dozens of eggs a day to trade with people who have a flock of 6 mixed chickens, or mixed ducks and turkeys, etc. It would let someone who has 50 RIR to swap eggs to get some BLRW, because someone else may want RIR. And it would help keep eggs affordable, as overpriced eggs won't have many takers.

This may be WAY too much work for a ship-a-thon but wouldn't it be nice to be able to trade with little cash changing hands and with a trade counter to track credits earned and spent?

That is an interesting notion.

 

[chicapee]

@WVduckchick
Pics of LO's. Thinking I have 3 boys 1 girl.

I have a feeling the person that sold them to me knew the sexes too.

 

[RubyNala97]

Ok, those are fine... yep, other pics made them look waaaay smaller, lol...
Yep, that's what *can* happen in shipping eggs... not always though... quality of stock, eggs, packing and shipping roughness make a big difference...

Id love it if you could give me instructions for packing before the ship-a-thon. Btw, auto-correct always makes it "thin"

I've had eggs shipped to me in cartons that did well and some not so well... personally, I don't like balled up paper as a packing insulator... leaves too much air space for the carton to shift around in...
Some pics are doctored, some is just lighting... I don't believe any pic can really show accurate egg color... I have 2 pics I'll post later to show you... eggs can get a good, pretty blue, but a true Robin's Egg blue is beyond expectations in my opinion... if there's a greenish tint, the blue comes out better as the laying cycle goes on...
Too much emphasis is put on egg color... type is way more important and egg color is last to worry about... my favorite saying is 'You gotta build the barn before you paint it'... blue eggs are doable, but depending on stock and introducing new blood, etc, can take generations to perfect...

Yes, I think shock absorber is a big part of getting eggs that are not damaged.

With as many birds as I've had, I've experienced probably every poultry reproductive issue out there.  From my experience, shell quality issues fall into three types, dietary, transmissible, organic.

Dietary generally affect more than one bird in the flock and are typically caused by low dietary calcium, excessive dietary calcium, or general poor diet.  Underdog hens who don't get enough food from the feeders also fall into this category.  Even though I have a lot of feeder space, I also have some real butthead alpha hens.  

Transmissible, such as IB, affect some of the birds and often comes on suddenly.  Some birds may be affected for life and should be culled, others make a recovery and resume normal shell quality and rate of lay.  

Organic includes poor shell quality during early and late molt, tumors, reproductive injury, nest crowding, old age, parasite loads, and other non-disease, non-dietary issues.  While you can correct some of these, others require time and some cannot be resolved.  A bird that begins to lay eggs with a single defect, such as a spiral at the large end or a groove along the length, may carry that flaw forever, and it makes for a unique egg basket.

I have one hen that lays an egg that has a flat spot on the bottom and wrinkles along the sides, as if it was dropped soft and tried to "splash" then hardened.  She doesn't lay many, but they are all like that.

Good post! Very informative.

That's why I'm only doing 2 or 3. I'm footing the bill to practice, and a few of my friends will get some nice eggs, but after that I'm taking orders. I still got  farm to feed

X2

Nah, just keep scaring the crap outta him... he might send you some out of fear...

Yeah, he has said quite a few times that he's scared of Friday! Lol!

 

[WVduckchick]

@WVduckchick
Pics of LO's. Thinking I have 3 boys 1 girl.




I have a feeling the person that sold them to me knew the sexes too.

Pretty color! Thanks for posting. How old are they now? I know my boys' combs started growing much, much faster, and got RED faster. Once I saw 3 with bigger combs, I knew it for sure. Now the boys are almost twice the size of the girls! They are huge! My girls are almost 21 weeks, and a couple girls are starting to get much more red combs, but I still don't know if any of them are laying or not, because of my unpredictable silkies!

 

[chicapee]

Pretty color! Thanks for posting. How old are they now? I know my boys' combs started growing much, much faster, and got RED faster. Once I saw 3 with bigger combs, I knew it for sure. Now the boys are almost twice the size of the girls! They are huge! My girls are almost 21 weeks, and a couple girls are starting to get much more red combs, but I still don't know if any of them are laying or not, because of my unpredictable silkies!

Thank you! They are about 6 weeks. Those 3 have big combs and the 1 that I think is the girl has hardly any. She has feathered in much quicker too.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Id love it if you could give me instructions for packing before the ship-a-thon. Btw, auto-correct always makes it "thin"

I wish I had auto correct...lol Something needs to make me thin.... Pepsi addiction and lack of exercise program doesn't do it! (We won't even discuss my packaged/processed diet...lol)

Anyway..... I agree. I want to pick Ravyn's brain about packing before I tackle it myself if I so ship for the "Thon" . I'm a visual learner so I need step by step pics....lol