Sierra Mountains-Gold Country-Foothills

[Hangtown Farms]

Hi Everyone. My name is Jason. Live Southeast Of Placerville near the Y.at pleasant Valley rd and Bucks Bar.
I am a Chicken nut.
I have
4 true Ameraucana's 3 black one blue. had a Lavender but a fox got her. (Light color chickens are not good here in the hills)
2 olive egger hens ( 2 young olive egger roosters I am giving away to non dinner homes. lol) will upload a pic.
2 easter eggers
2 campines a male and a female (these will be rehomed soon) starting to do some breeding of Icelandic's
4 icelandics
1 wynadotte
just hatched 4 crele penedesenca's (very dark egg layers) looking for more of these. or any kind of Penedesenca
My goal is to breed Icelandic's hatch the eggs and help this very rare breed.
I will keep 2 roosters and want to have about 12 hens.
I will also keep the Penedesenca and Ameraucana's to have egg color diversity when I sell my eggs.
I may breed the Penedesenca's in a seperate pen. Not sure. this breed is stunning

I noticed a few people say they are looking for Ameraucanas. I know a few people that breed them. I am planning on getting more eggs in the incubator soon as well.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

yeah just picked up 3 more icelandic chicks today

and rehomed my 2 olive egger roosters

 

[sherylreno]

Congrats! It's a same something got your Lavender Am. I have a LA and I would love to breed her with a Lav split roo. I just have 1 so a roo just for her won't work.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

look up John Brekken on sac craigslist. he has some trues. also Lia on there.

 

[harbisgirl]

Welcome Jason I'm in Pleasant Valley near the PV an Mt. Aukum split. Howdy neighbor! I'm new to chickens so I won't have much to contribute but I look forward to learning more about you and your brood. I have 6 girls about 2 months old. My hubby just finished their coop and outdoor run so I'll be posting pics of my setup soon!

Question, why do you say that light colored chickens don't do well around here?

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Hi neighbor... light color chickens do great till something eats them lol... they stand out to hawks and other predators.
Today I just picked up a few cool chickens..
5 cream legbar x penedesenca x welsummer crosses. 1 may be a welsummer but the other 4 appear to possibly be autosexed. 1 is much greyer than the other 3. I plan on breeding back to my crele penedesenca.. to see if i can get a cool olive egger.

 

[harbisgirl]

We gotta get a topic started on this thread, people! We need to show some signs of life! I'll start...what's everybody doing for the weekend? I have a pretty big to-do list of projects. The hardest one being that we put in new unfinished hardwood flooring in our house and on Saturday we are sanding it. Which means no A/C on the hottest day. Oh goody. We haven't run the A/C yet this year because our house stays surprisingly cool even when it's been so hot outside - but when it gets over 100 in the valley I'm thinkin it would have been a day to run the A/C. My in-laws will be over on Saturday so my hubby and FIL can work on the floors. My MIL just doesn't do heat, so she may not come (muhaha) so maybe I'll let the men folk do their man work indoors and I might just have to be in the pool with the dogs in between vacuuming up the sawdust and getting them cold drinks.

Next on the to-do list is to tend to my neglected garden (though my lettuce is badass!) and plant some more seeds for the next rotation. I'm gonna hit up the Front Yard Nursery to see if they have any seedlings of any sort to transplant. Not exactly the best time to plant things, I know, but I can't help it. I like to dig and get dirty and playing in my garden gives me a legitimate reason.

Does anyone here grow hops? My husband is a home brewer and we're planting hops. I know you should plant them in the fall for harvesting the following fall, but we got some rhizomes so I'll plant them now. I figure they'll just have that much extra time to establish their root system before next year’s hop harvest. That’s my theory anyway J We bought 4 types of hops - Fuggle (woody/earthy for porter, stout, pale ales), Willamette (Like Fuggle but a hint of fruity/floral), Goldings (bitter, acidic for Ales) and the ever popular and versatile Cascade. That’s really all I know about hops though. He brews it, I drink it (and apparently grow hops for him now). It’s a fair trade off though, he makes great beer. I only like dark beer though – Stouts and Porters. He makes the BEST stout on the planet. He likes that nasty skunky, hoppy IPA crap though so he brews all kinds of beers depending on his mood. He has a Black Porter fermenting right now and is gonna be brewing up a new batch this weekend – IPA I think. Blech. I’ll wait for the Black Porter, thank you very much.

Oh yeah, chickens J This week, my girls finally figured out that they should be sleeping on the roosting bars. It was so exciting to walk out there the other night and see them lined up and sleeping on their roosting bar. Isn’t it funny how excited you get over silly chicken things? My non-chicken-owner family members look at me like I’m nuts when I got off on a chicken story. But they pat me on the head and indulge me by asking me thoughtful questions, just to humor me. That’s nice I guess J If I have time this weekend, which I doubt, I’d like to build them some outdoor roosting bars and resting spots. Maybe a little chicken swing I saw on someone’s thread here awhile back that their chickens seemed to like it. I don’t free range my girls – they have an outdoor enclosure of about 32’x19’ - so I feel obligated to provide some chicken enrichment toys and activities (open to suggestions!). I’d also like to start on their nipple watering system – hubby got all the pipe and fittings and such, just need to assemble it. I’d also like a long planter box to go along their enclosure, so the girls can nibble on greens as they grow through the fencing but won’t be able to kill the plant. Any plant suggestions?

Ok, that’s all I can think to ramble on about. Just trying to spark some conversation on this thread J

 

[chickers]

Hi, I'm Alta. I live in Nevada City, and I'm a victim of chicken math.

We have 11 chickens--3 hens, 2 almost 4 month olds and 6 3-4 week old chicks.

We started out with three hens, and after a couple tragedies, the last one due to a hawk attack, we were down to one, "Brahma", who is a Light Brahma (creative naming, huh?). So my 12 year old son and I drove to Davis to get a black Silkie to replace our lost black Silkie. We named this hen "The New Silkie" as the last one was just "Silkie" (also creative, huh? Just wait, it will get better

.)

Our next new chicken was a white Polish. When we got the Polish, my son said calling her "Polish" might be offensive to some people so we should name her "Pole Dancer" instead. Because of course, that wouldn't offend anyone.

My husband has now taken to calling her "Marie" after Marie Curie because she was Polish. I've given up and call her "Pole Dancer Marie", which probably isn't what my husband intended.

The 4 month olds are both Splash Laced Red Wyandottes, who were meant to take the place of my son's favorite chicken "Wyandotte" that was killed by the hawk. They were both supposed to be pullets, but of course, you know what happened. The cockeral is "Edge" and the pullet is" Sabu". My son is a WWE fan, hence the names.

The chicks are a Jersey Giant, "Big Show", a a Buff Orpington, "Buffy", a Partridge Cochin, "Featherfoot", an Easter Egger, "Vulture", and two as-yet unnamed Welsummers. I could still claim I was just re=building the flock with the new Silkie, the Polish, and SLRWs, but the chicks are pure chicken math.

This leads into what we are doing right now--working on a new, better, bigger, coop and run. And of course, we're on a tight schedule since we need to put the 4 month olds in with the hens in time to use the old, smaller coop for the chicks when they're ready to go outside. The new coop is a 6' x 8' shed and should be done this week. The run will probably not be done until sometime next week though. I can hardly wait! My chickens are going to think they've moved into a mansion.

Other than the chickens, we have three dogs, two rabbits, five guinea pigs, two rats, two goats, two Uromastyx (lizards), and three box turtles.

 

[harbisgirl]

Welcome I have a turtle too - A Mississippi Map turtle named Squirt (we're not too original either, and we used to have a kitty named Miss Kitty). Although I think he is a she - so I think i'm going to have to build a pond somewhere on my property or build her a nesting area clubhouse in her 200 gallon tank...blergh.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

wow it was a hot one.
I put my younger chicks out in the grow up coop and pen. They loved it.
Harbisgirl love the idea of growing your hops. just make sure to keep them well watered and the soil amended. mulch mulch mulch.
ohh yeah and let me know when the beer is ready