Texas

[crazycknlady]

what area do you live in?

 

[needlessjunk]

Welcome from Round Rock.

 

[Ren2014]

does anyone have any leads for a LGD breeder or pups for sale in the south Texas area?

prefer Great Pyr, or Great Pyr/Ant cross.

Check out Texas Great Pyrenees Rescue http://www.txpyrs.org They have LGD dogs.

 

[RoosterCogburn7]

Making Progress on the newest coop.

 

[NickyPick]

My Yankees (delawares & new hampshires) are 17 weeks old now and have really outgrown the small coop I've got them in. It's a 6X6, so its really only comfortable for 9 full grown chickens and I've got 15 over there! Mr. Feathers & Erebel have done a great job taking over the raising of the 3 week old chicks I gave them. Erebel is a buff Orpington and goes broody 3-4 times a year, but has always crushed any eggs I've given her, so I thought I'd try giving her chicks instead. I wasn't sure how it would work, since they weren't day olds, but by the end of the first day, she was in her element being a mama hen. Heck, even now, she's still protective of the group and has not gone back to laying. Mr. Feathers has always been good with chicks.


Erebel is front and right with the asked for cockerel, Al Capone, behind her. The oops cockerel is the big white one with his head down. He's Colonel Sanders and looks like he's going to be HUGE!


This is Colonel Sanders at 17 weeks.

Last night, in the dark, I moved the 13 Yankees over to the Egg Rock Coop with all my 41 Rocks (name theme). Moved 4 of the Rocks over to the small coop to keep Mr. Feathers & Erebel company and be my possible source for incubating eggs for next spring. This morning, I went out to see how it was all going. There are two roosters in that group. Conan, who is a huge 2 year old EE rooster and juvenile Dragon, who is a smaller EE rooster. There was a little tiff between Conan and Colonel Sanders, but that was it! Dragon & Al Capone are definitely low totem boys, so they completely stayed out of everyones way and once the Colonel showed he wasn't going to challenge Conan, everything was fine. Easiest merge I think I've ever done. I really think having Erebel & Mr. Feathers raise those chicks produced some confident young chickens. The last group was isolated, then bullied and they're still, at a year, easily freaked.

I think I'll leave everyone in the coop/run for today and maybe tomorrow, to make sure the Yankees are comfortable with this being their home, then let them have the barn only for a week or so before letting them range out in the horse pastures again.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

My Yankees (delawares & new hampshires) are 17 weeks old now and have really outgrown the small coop I've got them in. It's a 6X6, so its really only comfortable for 9 full grown chickens and I've got 15 over there! Mr. Feathers & Erebel have done a great job taking over the raising of the 3 week old chicks I gave them. Erebel is a buff Orpington and goes broody 3-4 times a year, but has always crushed any eggs I've given her, so I thought I'd try giving her chicks instead. I wasn't sure how it would work, since they weren't day olds, but by the end of the first day, she was in her element being a mama hen. Heck, even now, she's still protective of the group and has not gone back to laying. Mr. Feathers has always been good with chicks.


Erebel is front and right with the asked for cockerel, Al Capone, behind her. The oops cockerel is the big white one with his head down. He's Colonel Sanders and looks like he's going to be HUGE!


This is Colonel Sanders at 17 weeks.

Last night, in the dark, I moved the 13 Yankees over to the Egg Rock Coop with all my 41 Rocks (name theme). Moved 4 of the Rocks over to the small coop to keep Mr. Feathers & Erebel company and be my possible source for incubating eggs for next spring. This morning, I went out to see how it was all going. There are two roosters in that group. Conan, who is a huge 2 year old EE rooster and juvenile Dragon, who is a smaller EE rooster. There was a little tiff between Conan and Colonel Sanders, but that was it! Dragon & Al Capone are definitely low totem boys, so they completely stayed out of everyones way and once the Colonel showed he wasn't going to challenge Conan, everything was fine. Easiest merge I think I've ever done. I really think having Erebel & Mr. Feathers raise those chicks produced some confident young chickens. The last group was isolated, then bullied and they're still, at a year, easily freaked.

I think I'll leave everyone in the coop/run for today and maybe tomorrow, to make sure the Yankees are comfortable with this being their home, then let them have the barn only for a week or so before letting them range out in the horse pastures again.

Can you comment on the size of your New Hampshires? Are they hatchery stock or form another source? I have some New Hampshires I got from Ideal, and I guess I thought they'd be bigger (but I'm wondering if my expectations were faulty). The Naked Necks I got at the same time are larger...

Are you happy with the Delawares?

- Ant Farm

 

[NickyPick]

My 17 week old Delawares and New Hampshires are from Ideal. So far, really nice birds, but they're still pretty young - haven't even gotten old enough to lay yet. These are my first Delawares. They're a little more flighty than the NH's. I have previously gotten some NH's from McMurray (5) and I'm down to 2. Nice hefty birds with a good size egg. Not overly friendly, but not scairdy either. My Welsummers and some of the Easter Eggers go absolutely apesh*t if I pick them up, but the NH's have a first squawk, then settle down nicely. I'll wait to see how Ideal's NH's compare to McMurray before I get some more, down the line. I alternate buying chicks and incubating eggs, so next year is incubating.

 

[bnjrob]

Can you comment on the size of your New Hampshires? Are they hatchery stock or form another source? I have some New Hampshires I got from Ideal, and I guess I thought they'd be bigger (but I'm wondering if my expectations were faulty). The Naked Necks I got at the same time are larger...

Are you happy with the Delawares?

- Ant Farm

The SOP weights for New Hampshires: cock 8.5 lbs, cockerel 7.5 lbs, hen 6.5 lbs, pullet 5.5lbs

SOP weights for Naked Necks: cocks 8.5 lbs, cockerel 7.5 lbs, hen 6.5 lbs, pullet 5.5 lbs

Things like length of time to mature can affect your perception of the bird's size. If you try to compare immature birds of different breeds, or even same breed but different strain, you can wind up with inaccurate information.

You get better info if you only compare birds of the same breed from the same hatch, until they are completely mature and filled out at 1-2 years. Once they are completely mature, then compare birds of the same breed to see how they turned out.

Really you need to wait to make final decisions on birds, if possible, until after you have raised several different hatches to complete maturity. If you do it with just one group, especially with the first group that you obtain, then the results are likely to be inaccurate because there is still too much of the previous owner's mating decisions & husbandry methods that affect those first birds that you get.

If you are trying to decide between which breed to keep and which breed to get rid of, unless one of the breeds has some obvious problem that you don't like, you'll get more accurate information by hatching and raising multiple hatches of both breeds completely to maturity (which will take you 2 - 3 years minimum), and then comparing the accumulated data for point of lay, length til complete maturity, size/amount of meat at different stages, etc. so you can see which breed has more of the traits that you desire.

The thing about raising birds with specific goals in mind that don't have a lot to do with feather color, is that it is a much longer process. That's why the majority of people do not breed seriously because it's not only a lot of extra work, but it also takes a lot more time to gather sufficient data to make the best choices. Most people want immediate results and it's a lot faster to see feather color results from your breeding choices than it is to gather data related to productivity.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

The SOP weights for New Hampshires: cock 8.5 lbs, cockerel 7.5 lbs, hen 6.5 lbs, pullet 5.5lbs

SOP weights for Naked Necks: cocks 8.5 lbs, cockerel 7.5 lbs, hen 6.5 lbs, pullet 5.5 lbs

Things like length of time to mature can affect your perception of the bird's size. If you try to compare immature birds of different breeds, or even same breed but different strain, you can wind up with inaccurate information.

You get better info if you only compare birds of the same breed from the same hatch, until they are completely mature and filled out at 1-2 years. Once they are completely mature, then compare birds of the same breed to see how they turned out.

Really you need to wait to make final decisions on birds, if possible, until after you have raised several different hatches to complete maturity. If you do it with just one group, especially with the first group that you obtain, then the results are likely to be inaccurate because there is still too much of the previous owner's mating decisions & husbandry methods that affect those first birds that you get.

If you are trying to decide between which breed to keep and which breed to get rid of, unless one of the breeds has some obvious problem that you don't like, you'll get more accurate information by hatching and raising multiple hatches of both breeds completely to maturity (which will take you 2 - 3 years minimum), and then comparing the accumulated data for point of lay, length til complete maturity, size/amount of meat at different stages, etc. so you can see which breed has more of the traits that you desire.

The thing about raising birds with specific goals in mind that don't have a lot to do with feather color, is that it is a much longer process. That's why the majority of people do not breed seriously because it's not only a lot of extra work, but it also takes a lot more time to gather sufficient data to make the best choices. Most people want immediate results and it's a lot faster to see feather color results from your breeding choices than it is to gather data related to productivity.

Very helpful (as always) - thank you! I know there's a "SOP" weight for any given breed, but that it can drift up or down depending on the source, and have heard from various folks of different sizes in hatchery vs. non-hatchery New Hampshires which is why I asked (I already had the hatchery NHs on hand at that point). Unfortunately, I don't have room to grow out all of them, so I may need to just make a decision early, and there are other more subtle things I sort of don't like about some of them - though I will keep watching them up until I have to make a decision. I want to keep things more simple (just NNs), but I might keep a good looking NH pullet or two to see how they do as they mature, if I have room. I was just curious if some folks had really large NHs here.

Of note, the NHs have done extremely well in high heat (a few unexpected days around 98F, and they didn't even seem to notice). So that's worth watching...

- Ant Farm

 

[bnjrob]

Very helpful (as always) - thank you! I know there's a "SOP" weight for any given breed, but that it can drift up or down depending on the source, and have heard from various folks of different sizes in hatchery vs. non-hatchery New Hampshires which is why I asked (I already had the hatchery NHs on hand at that point). Unfortunately, I don't have room to grow out all of them, so I may need to just make a decision early, and there are other more subtle things I sort of don't like about some of them - though I will keep watching them up until I have to make a decision. I want to keep things more simple (just NNs), but I might keep a good looking NH pullet or two to see how they do as they mature, if I have room. I was just curious if some folks had really large NHs here.

Of note, the NHs have done extremely well in high heat (a few unexpected days around 98F, and they didn't even seem to notice). So that's worth watching...

- Ant Farm

With hatchery stock, you're probably going to see more under SOP weight birds than you will over, because it's the smaller, lighter birds that tend to lay earlier and better since they don't have to devote their energy resources to growing larger frames and body mass, and it's those smaller birds putting more eggs into the mix for hatching.

You don't have to grow out every single bird in a hatch to complete maturity - although it helps more if you can do that. Also depends on how many birds you're hatching out and what kinds of things you can cull early for. If you can at least keep a handful of hens and 1-2 cocks - the best ones - from each year of hatching for several years, you'll get some decent data to be able to see what influence is from the genetics and what influence is from your specific breeding choices and husbandry methods. And you'll have the records you kept of why you culled each of the other birds at an earlier time frame, so you'll be able to see the data from the culls and compare that to the small groups of best specimens that you kept for a few years.