Sumatra Thread!

[Coop Scoop Boogie]

It's hard to remember exactly what got me into chickens but I do know
it was kids that kept the whole idea going. Some of the first chickens
we had were Barred Rocks and then Sex Links and then we moved to
a few more exotic type breeds. I do like my EEs for all the colors they can
have.......pretty eye candy.....but not as pretty as the Sumatras. It's been
more than 26 years of chickens and I hope to find more chickens that
appeal to me and learn about.

 

[raph]

My grampa used to be one of the best carlisle game breeders in the area, and my dad was into game aswell. When my dad met my mum he got into different breeds like Sussex leghorns welsummers and all sorts. So when I was growing up my residing memory of our old home was all the different breeds of chicken my dad had. I used to be able to walk through the poly tunnel where the birds were kept, and I could name every breed and I could tell you what breed layed which eggs. Being able to identify breeds and eggs doesn't sound like anything big now but when I was about 4/5 it was. And I have just picked up the love of chicken from my grampa and dad. My dream birds that I haven't got would be some oxford old English, Malay, Yokohama, leghorns of variouse colours and some blue pekins. What birds do you guys desire?

 

[zach N houdan]

I went to a youth show over the weekend. I didn't do great in chickens. I got Champion and Reserve Champion Waterfowl on a Blue Muscovy and a Gray Rouen. I spoke with the judge after the show and he said if my Shamo was not missing half a wing feather she would have won Best In Show because she was the best bird there and he would buy her in a heartbeat. I am happy that I got good feedback on her and many of my other birds just a little disappointed I didn't place with any chicks. There were only about 200 birds

 

[ramirezframing]

Sorry to hear that you are not happy about the outcome of the last show, but I hope you had fun.

 

[zach N houdan]

Sorry to hear that you are not happy about the outcome of the last show, but I hope you had fun.

I had fun, and I have another show may 17th so we will see!

 

[NYREDS]

I would like everyone's imput on the following problem I have with some poultry breeders. I see online and at shows people selling "bad quality or pet quality" birds for $30-50! I do not get it. I sell my culls or pets for $5-10. Breeder birds that will show okay but need qualities breed to them to improve for 15-20 and my show quality birds which means birds I would show and put my name on for $25+ because it's a fair an going rate and I have a nice amount of wins but my name is not big so I don't feel like charging $150 for a pair. So back to my problem is that I see way to many bad quality birds being sold for $40+ each. Am I the only one or are my prices too low, let me know and these crazy prices are usually silkies, polish and old English around me. I would love to hear how everyone feels or thinks of this situation. Hope all is well with everyone.
Zachary

Caveat Emptor-Let the buyer beware! People have the right to ask what they want for their birds, you have the right to say no thanks.

 

[Coop Scoop Boogie]

I went to a youth show over the weekend. I didn't do great in chickens. I got Champion and Reserve Champion Waterfowl on a Blue Muscovy and a Gray Rouen. I spoke with the judge after the show and he said if my Shamo was not missing half a wing feather she would have won Best In Show because she was the best bird there and he would buy her in a heartbeat. I am happy that I got good feedback on her and many of my other birds just a little disappointed I didn't place with any chicks. There were only about 200 birds

Congrats on the wins with the waterfowl!!!

 

[raph]

I've got Something like 18 light Sussex eggs and 10 sumatra eggs collected for hatching. I'm trying to breed a new young sumatra cockerel from my old stock, so it can go with my two new hens. And the Sussex I'm breeding for selling and I might keep a good cockerel or hen. And my brown sumatra is nearly two years old and he is looking good. If the sumatra below was solid black would he be any good for breeding?

 

[Coop Scoop Boogie]

I've got Something like 18 light Sussex eggs and 10 sumatra eggs collected for hatching. I'm trying to breed a new young sumatra cockerel from my old stock, so it can go with my two new hens. And the Sussex I'm breeding for selling and I might keep a good cockerel or hen. And my brown sumatra is nearly two years old and he is looking good. If the sumatra below was solid black would he be any good for breeding?

He is beautiful raph

With the way he is standing and not knowing what your SOP
is for Sumatras it would be hard to say about breeding for show.
Breeding for your own pleasure......he would be very nice for that.
Good luck with him......would love to see how his babies turn out.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I have often wondered how people got into the certain breeds of poultry that they have or how/why they got started in poultry in the first place.

For me, I basically grew up with them around. Some breeds that I have now are because of their function i.e. silkies to hatch eggs and turkeys to eat. Some were for looks like the polish and the red golden pheasants. While other breeds were a happy accident that have lead to years of forever looking, lots of road miles logged with new friends made along the way, and some head banging on a wall. Which in the long run have paid off and I hope will continue, just hopefully without so much head banging moments.

Well, when I was a kid my great grandparents had Leghorns that I had to feed, collect eggs from and learn to kill and pluck in the summer... but what happened is many years latter as an adult I started helping a friend out who ran a feed store, and then you know brought home that first chick, and then another and another... and as I was "helping" and so was hubby well at chick order time we could just look at the catalog and say hey can we get a few of these? Our friend was always like sure they will sell. So we ended up with a small flock of all different breeds. This then led to the kids joining 4-H and then a whole menagerie of critters, and then people started leaving critters in boxes, cages, buckets and tied to my front porch... soon we had rabbits, goats, turtles, iguanas, pet caged birds, rats, fish, guinea pigs, ducks, geese, cats, frogs, dogs and more. We became the local animal shelter/petting zoo in short order for the neighborhood... As to care everything I learned back then was first from the feed store folks and their customers and then latter hanging out with the kids at the 4-H classes.

Breeds of chickens we had that I can remember: Trans. NN (hubby choose), RIR (ended up as biggest Showmanship Bird for 4-H), Golden Sex Link, VN Jungle Bird (favorite of hubby and myself and another hubby pick), Ameracuana (probably EE... one of my favorite layers), Polish (just fun), Barred Rock (neighbor's kids favorite), and Cornish. But there where other breeds too.

All the chickens where cared for the same, had the same diets, but where allowed to free range all day long. Diet was laying feed scratch, oyster shell, extra grit, veggie scraps, fruit from our fruit trees and vines, what ever plants they ate in the garden (note lemon grass they will eat to the ground and you must protect the lemon grass from chickens), all the snail, slugs, and bugs they or I could find to feed them and wild bird seed (this just seemed logical to me to add to their diet) and any dog, cat or other critter feed they would steal (in fact we had to start feeding the dogs inside or the hens would not let the big dogs eat!) We treated our birds as preventative care for lice in case they picked it up from wild migratory or year round wild birds, but I never saw lice or mites on any of our birds. Our birds where healthy and happy and no behaviour issues.

The "coop" was an old big dog house in a dog run that we simply covered with green plastic ungulate roof stuff. Latter the chickens shared the "coop" with 2 mini goats. The geese and ducks preferred to sleep outside the coop area. We never built a proper coop or barn. Just added walls or finer wiring to the fence of the dog pen. I would put lots of straw in this area and then rake it out regularly and compost it. I had no laying boxes, but the hens usually laid in the dog house.

Now as far as breed interest... all our birds where chosen on the let's try and raise that, it looks interesting philosophy. This let's try that philosophy with no expectations did allow us to see that some breeds like to hang out in groups on the ground most, while others liked trees, some could fly really good long distances the VN Jungle Bird was an amazing flyer, others just enough to clear a 6 foot fence and others not at all. Some breeds could jump, others could not. Some breeds very social others had a space bubble and preferred single foraging over group foraging. The birds learned voice and whistle commands even.

We only lost one bird to illness and that was a Peking Duck. We did loose a few birds to coons and a neighbor's dog over the years. We learned our dogs had to sleep outside at night to help prevent the predators from getting at our birds at night (Our Chow/German Line police dog German Shepherd mix was on top of hunting down all invading threats to her flock! She used special noises to tell the other dog where to go to catch the threat.)... when we got geese that also helped. Once full grown those geese where awesome guard animals as well as they slept outside the coop area.

Parenting note Geese can't be bribed by your teenagers trying to sneak out a window to go to that party you said no to especially if the "animal area" is outside their windows... lol! First the geese alert, then the goats wake up and started bleating, then the chickens would go off, then the dogs show up barking and looking for the "critter".... and then parents wake up & pretend to run around looking for that pesky raccoon with flaslights, make teenagares look for the coon too, keep them up helping reinforce the coop... teenagers foiled again!

Wisdom and cunning of old age beats youth every time.

As to my current interests I would love to have in the future some Long Tailed breeds (but I knew even back then I did not have the proper place for them, and necessary knowledge), so I am currently trying to learn what I would need to do to keep such birds, happy, healthy, safe as I do not wish to loose birds from ignorance or predators ever again. I would like to breed them properly (so I can contribute to preserving the breed correctly). I also would like to try Bantams as we never did Bantams though the VN Jungle Bird I would consider it a Bantam sized bird. I am interested in... Jungle Birds, Yokohama Bantam, Phoenix Bantam, Sumatra Bantam, a few specific types of Japanese Bantams, and Ameraucana Bantams/EEs, for sure are all on my wish list for when I can have roos. I really like how the Sumatra and the Yokohama remind me of a bunch of bamboo leaves moving in the wind. I want to improve my chicken keeping skills and have everything ready for my birds before bringing a single bird home... I can only hide a couple bantam hens where I live now and I am in no rush to bring any hen home of any breed till I know and have exactly what they need and can keep them safe. So I am just trying to learn genetics, breed specific info, improve diet knowledge, improve disease knowledge and improve behavior knowledge base and coop design ideas, basically develop a better chicken keeping knowledge base. I suspect the only reason the Jungle Bird we had thrived was because I accidentally just gave it the right diet of wild seeds and high protien slugs and bugs as I figured that was good for all my chickens.

So this is a long term project for me... first learn new stuff, then maybe have a few hens = try new knowledge out, then when I retire move to a location I can have roos. (Come on Lotto! An early retirement sounds really good to me!

)

So that is how I got into liking chickens.