Show off your Delawares! *PIC HEAVY*

[Germaine_11.20]

Hi Kathy,

You can buy them from a pet store but I would recommend sillybirds here on BYC. He has a nice setup and he has fantastic prices.

Pet stores here charge about .10 a piece (crazy!) No way could I afford that for all the birds and the dragon. I bought his starter kit and 3000 extra worms the end of Aug. and today I would have to guess that I have at least 10 thousand worms and that doesn't count beetles or pupae or eggs.
I just have to find a better way to sift the worms from all the rest cause I refuse to pick them up. They say they don't bite but I don't want to find out they do. I hear the superworms do bite and that it hurts!

 

[kathyinmo]

How do you raise them? Outside, I presume? I can't even keep a plant alive, so I am sure I couldn't keep a worm alive!

 

[TimG]

Here's the picture of Julio who is available for relocation (mentioned in an earlier post, already pages back)!

 

[Mrs MIA]

What a handsome boy!

 

[joletabey]

Oh dear, my DH is going to think I am crazy if I want to start keeping worms now......RWoman, you are joking about biting, aren't you?

Cetawin- I hope Ultrasuede, as a full sib, looks as good as Thor and Athena- they are beautiful. Cyn said she thought Ultra is a blue, and right now he/she is dark and smokey looking- very pretty.

Cyn, I think that makes sense about the points and the crookedness - the degree of either will matter. I will try to post pics sometime this week, once again DH has the camera at work - I have one with a lot of color that appears to have only 4/5 points so far, but is slightly tilted to the right. So far, they all look nice and roundish to me, but that may be because I stuff them silly.

Kathy......of COURSE your Dels all have five perfect points.

Tim- WOW!!! Someone will snatch him up, I am sure!

 

[speckledhen]

Poor Isaac has been living in the broody pen (3x5 cage in Suede's coop) for three days, healing up from the last time those girls tried to remove his comb from his head. This morning since the rain stopped, I just opened the door and let the poor boy out by himself. He ran for the girls, flirted a minute, fussed with both Suede and Dutch, then he ran for the dusthole. Man, that boy missed his dustbaths! He just flopped around, singing and talking to himself for about 15 minutes. He is one man who loves his dustbath! Never saw a rooster dustbathe so much. And after I prepared the Firetower coop, yet again, for occupancy, he is in there with his daughter, Gracie, and her Barred EE friend, Riley. Tried putting Georgie in there and she picked at him constantly so took her out. Next, will try the others one by one. If I can't find one who won't hurt his comb and wattles, I will be sending those girls to live elsewhere soon.

 

[joletabey]

Poor Isaac! I am glad he is in with Gracie and Riley for company- hope they will stay good to him- I bet he was a hoot to watch in the dust bath-

 

[Laney]

Ok, the weather has finally warmed up a bit here today. In the 50's. I'm going to get out there and clean out that coop so I can go pick up my new Del girl. I've been putting off picking her up because I could only quarantine her in a little dog crate until the coop was cleaned and it was way too cold to work with water here.

Now I can clean and sanitize the coop, get it all ready for her. I'll pick up some plastic wrap at the hardware store to place around the outside since she'll be alone in there. This coop has a wire floor do I need to place anything over it?

Laney

 

[kathyinmo]

That darned Georgie! I hope she knows she had better leave poor Isaac alone. She's probably sulking and sorry now! Glad Isaac got his well deserved dust bath!

I was thinkin' of putting a tire of soft dirt in for my Halloween Hatch chicks. Do you think they would like that ... to dust bathe in?

BTW ... Ya know, Laney, I sent that nice 50 degree weather your way! It was here yesterday! Now, temps are falling. Down to 30 currently. Geeez, I hate winter. Though I am thankful to have moved south 300 miles, as Iowa is getting snow now! Don't get much snow here, nothing like Iowa.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Oh, I didn't know they hurt him that bad! Poor Isaac.

Kathy, the mealworms actually need to be raised at 70-80 degrees for optimal production. So inside. They are easy, easy. Just keep them in a plastic tote with ventilation holes and I raise mine in wheat bran. I feed them potatoes cut in half and carrots. Just a few last a week or more depending on the size of the worms.
I don't have to worry about mold here, but more humid areas do. I rarely look at them anymore and hardly seperate the eggs, worms, pupae and beetles anymore. There are just too many to do. So i sift out the mature ones as they come to the top. I will post some pics if I can later today.
Sillybirds sends small shoebox totes that fit just about anywhere. I have so many I use large rubbermaid totes now.