Sumatra Thread!

[TattooedChicks]

My chicken are also from July'ish, and clueless on sexing them. I just am assuming the roos are the ones who like to spread their neckfeathers and challenge others at this point. To my eye the hens are putting weight on earlier and have more rounded feathers and the roos more arrowhead shaped feathers. I am finally seeing lots of the green sheen feathering becoming expressed and am grateful. At this stage I haven't seen any purple indications and ordered from an Ohio breeder via MPC. My straight run of 10 I am now thinking was a 4 hen's to 6 roo's but can't be sure, but I am convinced that with that so many roo's who can fly I will annoy quite a few neighbors who keep chicken too. In my corner of the world that is every other address on 1 acre lots, but I am counting on predators thinning my roo's some during the day. So hopefully I won't become a pariah. After all I tolerate the neighbor's peahen's 1 door down without problem I just worry about breeding season and the bantams across the streets roo's.

I've never once seen my girl challenge any of the other bantams, male or female. She's very submissive but well liked, often in the center of cuddle piles and always allowed to eat next to whomever she pleases.

I have 3 jap Roos I'm having a hard time deciding who to keep, at this point they all can stay until any fighting gets bloody or something awful happens. Hope your neighbors will be patient and understanding, but I bet if they see your pretty boys a few might 'go missing'.

 

[AllenK RGV]

I've never once seen my girl challenge any of the other banttams, male or female. She's very submissive but well liked, often in the center of cuddle piles and always allowed to eat next to whomever she pleases.

I have 3 jap Roos I'm having a hard time deciding who to keep, at this point they all can stay until any fighting gets bloody or something awful happens. Hope your neighbors will be patient and understanding, but I bet if they see your pretty boys a few might 'go missing'.

Oh Yeah I'm not concerned about the gal's at all it is the boys I worry about. I am expecting some Feburary-April fallout from that lot here in the neighborhood since this isn't a flightless breed. I am expecting them to cause some trouble as I am not willing yet to trim wings to keep them home. Realistically with hawks and coyotes(nightly) here in this area for the last week I am expecting the boys to experience some self induced "culls". I am writing this as the coyotes just woke me up again out of concern for my chicken. I responded to a panic call from them earlier in the day to who knows what, it might have been a hawk, but they were all cowering in the coop acting as though they were deprived of food and water when I arrived. Mama hen(me) shows up and they all went crazy with their food and water. I'll never know what that was about but they really were heat stressed.

Sure I have 200 pounds or so of trusted dog flesh in the house that are trained to keep the coyotes at bay, but, they are in the house and not in the yard to keep my chicken safe... until they bray and tell me they need to patrol. I do love those gals one has been with us since 2007 and when she was our only girl told us when there were too many coyotes in the pack to face so we should go inside as a pack. Dogs are amazing too. As a matter of fact our oldest and dearest girl has been to Georgia, Far North Texas, Germany, France, Austin, and finally here in Deep South Texas. Probably has more world travel than most Americans. God I love that dog she has kept us all safe from foxes, coyotes, and weasels.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Oh Yeah I'm not concerned about the gal's at all it is the boys I worry about. I am expecting some Feburary-April fallout from that lot here in the neighborhood since this isn't a flightless breed. I am expecting them to cause some trouble as I am not willing yet to trim wings to keep them home. Realistically with hawks and coyotes(nightly) here in this area for the last week I am expecting the boys to experience some self induced "culls". I am writing this as the coyotes just woke me up again out of concern for my chicken. I responded to a panic call from them earlier in the day to who knows what, it might have been a hawk, but they were all cowering in the coop acting as though they were deprived of food and water when I arrived. Mama hen(me) shows up and they all went crazy with their food and water. I'll never know what that was about but they really were heat stressed.

Sure I have 200 pounds or so of trusted dog flesh in the house that are trained to keep the coyotes at bay, but, they are in the house and not in the yard to keep my chicken safe... until they bray and tell me they need to patrol. I do love those gals one has been with us since 2007 and when she was our only girl told us when there were too many coyotes in the pack to face so we should go inside as a pack. Dogs are amazing too. As a matter of fact our oldest and dearest girl has been to Georgia, Far North Texas, Germany, France, Austin, and finally here in Deep South Texas. Probably has more world travel than most Americans. God I love that dog she has kept us all safe from foxes, coyotes, and weasels.

oh... I forgot to mention the Bobcats in North Texas for Amber's resume. The thunderous noise that came from her feet hitting the ground was amazing to observe when she was chasing a bobcat at 2-3 years of age. If I knew how to hashtag I would call it "itcouldabeenahippo"

 

[AllenK RGV]

Boy we have all gone quiet in here lately. I assume it is because we are working our reqular projects or watching them grow out at a snails pace. The evening heat seems to be really hard on my flock as their door is always open to the evening sun in 90 degree heat. The chose to go into the hot box vs foraging under the dappled like of the oak trees. I'm in the trying to get them out of the coop more so bought 30 ponds of and started running that all over the place and a few were buy up to the challenge. I am thinking of getting some heat netting for the after noon sun as well but at TS this was $$ per panel. I'm sure I find good cheap shade cloth elsewhere at the garden centers.

 

[AllenK RGV]

This looks a much better to my wallet! https://www.ebay.com/i/332072855412?chn=ps&dispItem=1.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Found one on amazon for 19 my evening girls shoud rest a little better during the evening. One a very positive note all myimals are trained now to treat them as pets and even have surrogate mama dog. I was really worried the bird dog woud just never get it with these things. Mama dogs motivation is I think may be the chicken scratch!

 

[AllenK RGV]

I was encouraged to post photos, I had ordered chicks from MPC, but they were drop shipped from Polk, OH so they must stock sent from the Meyer's breeder farm. My straight run was 8 male 2 female and I have given 2 red faced males to a neighbor. I still have two red faced ones to give away or cull. After that I will have 3 to cull and one gent gets the rose. The red facers all seemed to have way better growth rates than the gypsy faced roos. At least all of my gypsies including hens are slow to grow. Additionally, the red faced ones are not as heat tolerant as my gypsies not clue on why that should be but that is my observation. I understand its pretty much impossible to breed out the red face from other posts so doubt it is an outcrossing I am seeing. They were probably born on July 16 as they shipped the morning of the 17th. I do consider ordering a straight run to be my first keeping mistake, the second one was to start fermenting their feed this late in the game they got their first real FF this morning, and a sampling of the primary 24 hours ago as I didn't want to waste feed if it wasn't going to fly.

 

[AllenK RGV]

I love those gamey looking legs compared to those stubs most other chicken breeds have. When your chicks were 3 months old did they also refuse to hold their tails at the proper Sumatra angles?

Only my 2 females hold theirs like a Sumatra. I am assuming the males will get right as they start getting their hormones in and need to parade about. Until that happens I currently have only the 2 heat intolerant red faces to remove from this flock.

Also breed standard related to ears wasn't it Tawney Ears? What the heck are those?


edit-punctuation, spelling, and grammar, plus something I forgot to ask.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Hi all,
For a breeding project, I'm looking for "reject" Sumatras that have purple feather sheen or blue sheen (not the purple barring due to nutritional issues, but a true violet sheen). I've heard people complain about hatchery stock with this fault. Does anyone know which hatcheries produce too-purple birds?

(I'd love to deal with breeders who work with violaceous breeds, but I live in Hawaii and can't find anyone willing to go through the troublesome paperwork and NPIP certification required to ship here, so I have to acquire stock from hatcheries.)

I think I have a hatchery for you I just posted pics on the most current page of this thread. If that is what you are looking for in a Large Fowl Sumatra, these were ordered from My Pet Chicken but drop shipped from Polk, Ohio so with 99.9% certainty by Meyer Hatchery https://www.meyerhatchery.com/ . These guys aren't nutritionally challenged as they have 24x7 food and water available and the free ranging is excellent right now. Best of luck to you!

Allen

 

[AllenK RGV]

@mistfall