The American Cemani Breeders Club...open forum

[blackbirds13]

If Ayam Cemani have been in the US for 30 years, why aren't they more widespread and readily available?

You'd have to direct that question to the owner of the birds. 30 or 7 is a bit of time... maybe folks just weren't selling them. As far as I know the ones I am ordering were being used for some sort of egg/nutrient testing and really not meant as a breeding flock for sales. He's only selling now to give some folks a chance to reasonably own the birds from my correspondence with him.

 

[boykin2010]

This is what I know about the Ayam Cemani that are from the lines of Wolfwhyte on BYC:
In 1989, he started working for S. Dillon Ripley. Ripley was head of the Smithsonian from 1965 to 1985 and started the festival of Indonesia at the Smithsonian. Ripley managed to get some Cemanis for it and Mike also imported his present stock at that time in 1994 from the same source. Ripley's went to the festival and then were brought back to his farm but due to their poor laying he replaced them with Marans in 1990. They were then given to a benefactor of the Smithsonian. She recently died and Mike bought what she had left which was two roosters and six hens. Both lines of his stock come from the same place but have not been crossed for about thirty years.

Toni-Marie’s line was imported by her in 2007 I believe

Greenfire Farms imported their Ayam Cemani from UK stock in 2012 I think.

There is mention of a gentleman called Chris Charles and I am sure there are more lines that I am unaware of so if any other information is known, those folks are encouraged to post.

So the eggs were or were not imported legally in 1994?

 

[blackbirds13]

Quote:
They were imported by the Smithsonian for a festival. That is a question you might want to direct to them or the owner. I intend to make no assumptions or allegations here.

 

[Steadfast]

Update:

Yeah Gotta Have a Plan... This one showing the revisions is mine...
( i whipped this up at lunch)



The Black is what already exsists
The Red is what I have to change
The blue are doors I need to make

I will be knocking this out this weekend.

(pictures to come)

 

[blackbirds13]

Update:

Yeah Gotta Have a Plan... This one showing the revisions is mine...
( i whipped this up at lunch)



The Black is what already exsists
The Red is what I have to change
The blue are doors I need to make

I will be knocking this out this weekend.

(pictures to come)

Good luck with your renovations. I think raising the pen is a good idea. I use dog kennel panels and made the 2 big coops 6 foot tall and 8 foot tall in the center so I could walk in with no problems. I think I'll try to make another big coop this summer and maybe one that's similar to yours also. I think I could get by with using one of those Ware dog kennels from TSC when they go on sale for $100 or so. I'm still deciding what to do. The weather here is not quite yet conducive to any real outdoor construction for me.

Steadfast are both our pairs coming at the same time?

 

[Steadfast]

Date: 03/24/2014
This is Jerry
(Im the younger better looking guy)

Update:
The coop renovations are 1/2 finished...
and I sit here, posting this, in muscular agony from the work...

Looking at the coop on the ground, my father in law (FIL) said "why build up that run when you can just lift up the WHOLE coop?"

So that is what we did, and it was far more of a miserable experience than we could imagine...
That little coop was so heavy we could not budge it by hand...

First, We built a frame to put under the coop ...


Then we lifted the coop with rocks and levers..
The heavier end was so heavy we had to use a truck jack to lift it...
We built 3 towers to lift it. Each time we shoved in another rock on each side until it was up.



Now the hard part...
How the heck do we get the frame in place past the rock towers Safely?
(a Great picture here)


So, clueless, we put it under the coop as much as possible in order to "Get a Better Look"
in hope for inspiration...



(check this out in close up to see the old chicken wire ground skirt in all directions)



(Random Chicken supervising our progress...)

Next... how do we get the frame under past those load barring rock towers without dyeing???

Easy, jack up the coop and Build more load barring towers footed inside the frame.
Then knock out the older load barring tower blocking the frame... and try not to die...
(This was a hair rising moment)



Now for the fine tuning....

build a single "T shaped" tower at the center balancing point to lift the weight just 1 inch above all 3 load barring towers so that if it falls it will still land safely on the towers.

Then one by one, change the shape of the bases of load barring towers into bridges that span over the frame's bottom rail
So that the frame can be moved just enough to get it into place, and then lower the coop down onto the frame.




This took all of the first day and we where so exhausted from flinging 30 pound stones around
that we quit as soon as it was safely nailed into place....


Sunday - Work Day 2:

Exhausted from all the rock juggling the day before...
My dear FIL and I started early and it was cold outside.

I put up an "easy up" do to forecast Rain.

Then we built a door frame and installed the first of 6 doors demanded by this renovation.
We also built a longer chicken ramp so the birds could climb up into the coop.


My wife came out to announce that we were going to have 4 consecutive below freezing nights in a row...

so, because of this, and the fact that this coop still needed to house our five baby copper marans,
I had to stop building doors and spend the rest of the day getting the coop secure and ready for use again.
This news sucked, because it meant I had to re run all the chicken wire.... RIGHT NOW!

---Then it began to rain---

Using "Pig ear clips" I re-connected the chicken wire and cut fresh wire to add the 2 foot wire skirt which had to be buried underground to keep out digging predators like dogs. At least the soaking wet ground made the skirt easier to bury.

It was a long day of miserable ground crawling, Cutting chicken wire, stapling, and using "Pig ear clips" to re-connect (sew) the chicken wire from the coop back to the open run. Re-securing the coop to preditor proof usefulness took all day...

Here are some finished pictures:



My FIL with ingratiated Chicken:


There is MUCH more to do...
I still have to:
1. rip off that stupid back door,
2. add a roof to replace that ugly blue tarp, and install various roosts,
3. divide the coop and covered run in half with chicken wire,
4. build 5 more doors for access to both sides,
and
5. build an additional feeding station and waterer for both sides.

 

[DCchicken]

Looks good Jerry. When you are done you want to come down to Maryland and build 4 or 5 of those for me? I have been hatching out Ayam Cemani chicks since January and don't have coops for them yet. Plus I have a pair coming from Wolfwhyte that will need a separate coop (to avoid crossing the lines). More are hatching out right now.

I think you had the right idea of building BEFORE you get your chicks. If I don't do something quick, my little army of Cemani are going to have to move into the coop with the Marsh Daisy chicks.

 

[Steadfast]

Something has to give... thats for sure....
I would "get on it" if I were you...

DC,
you should post your photos of your renovation too...

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I would guess, cool looks can only get you so far, and I mean cool to me, to some they have Weird looks, given their wild nature they are about as productive as your average Jungle fowl,

 

[DCchicken]

Quote: Not true about the productivity, at least with the Toni-Marie Astin line. Mine lay better than any of the 15 rare breeds I have. I don't know where people got the 60-90 eggs idea as all of mine have been laying daily since December. The reason Toni-Marie Astin's line are so productive is that they were raised landrace and not breed for specific traits such as those in Europe or in Indonesia. So they have retained their productive layer while other lines have lost it while improving cosmetically.

They are such good layers, that I am actually keeping two separate lines. One line will maintain the high productivity and the other will be focused on getting the blackest of the black. I may call the productive line something different to avoid any confusion.