The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

Adding some photos I took today of Atlas and girls, not quite at the 25 week point yet (that will be Friday). I let them out to expend some energy.

I've noticed that sometimes, he tucks his wings up properly and other times, they are a tad low, like his late Uncle Rex's were. Same with his tail, sometimes it seems a smidge high, sometimes the angle smooths out. His back is a tad shorter than it should be, a tiny bit sloped (learned a new term for that, "rainy day back"), but overall, I love his shape, size, balance, his head and bearing.

Wings properly tucked:





Wings slightly dropped down:



And fighting with Spike. Great opponent, 1/5 your size with zero spurs, yeah equally matched, LOL.


Video of the same-works best if you let it buffer first: http://vid673.photobucket.com/albums/vv95/Mtnviewpoultry/Video Clips/DSCN4913_zps65b61c47.mp4

Rachel and Rowena.

 

[lularat]

Hopefully his hormones will calm down and he will behave himself. Sure hope so....I have enjoyed watching that little man grow into a big gorgeous man.

 

[speckledhen]

Hopefully his hormones will calm down and he will behave himself. Sure hope so....I have enjoyed watching that little man grow into a big gorgeous man.

Thank you, so have I! Even if I decide to let him go, I prefer that he behave at his new home. I don't like to make my problems those of someone else, but I am veering toward the opinion that he's just very energetic and hasn't had enough free range time. He had a blast today, though he's a little beat up on his comb from fighting with Spike. I even used the big leaf rake to herd him away from the fence so he wouldn't cause Spike to hurt himself and he didn't attack it at all, just shied away from it and looked at it suspiciously.

 

[1muttsfan]

Those girls are really coming along nicely - love their big V tail angles. If Atlas moves along, you will still have those genetics to work with later, given more time and space.

 

[speckledhen]

Hope these pics don't disappear. Here are Atlas's brother, half sister and the Delaware cockerel is his cousin (daddy of chick is his grandpa).

 

[1muttsfan]

Well they definately did not disappear! So cute at that age.

 

[speckledhen]

No, they got posted twice instead, LOL. I'll report the extra one.

Atlas did great today. He got to free range with the two girls. They ended up on one side of the driveway and downhill from the parking area. I was watching them when I heard something rustling in the leaves on the other side of the driveway and thinking it was a dog that had come in through out open gate (expected delivery so open today), I was straining to see through the trees when Atlas yelled out and he and the girls suddenly jumped and beat feet toward their coop and away from the sound. Good rooster! Thankfully, it wasn't a dog, fox or coyote.

It turned out to be my neighbor's two Golden Comet pullets who had come through the gate, partially down my driveway and were scratching around, something we've already warned her about, but she's clueless. May have to kidnap them and rehome them somewhere cuz they ain't coming near my flock. I have no idea where she got them and if it was a particular one of the feed stores in town, that isn't good. They're probably going to be fox bait or freeze to death this winter, considering they really don't have a closed coop and the fully open side is facing the wind/rain/snow direction.

 

[Minflick]

I've seen an awful lot of pop-up door pulls on this forum, and I have one myself. Is there any way you could rig that for your pop-up door so you could pull from outside, and then, once the birds are all out, THEN open the man door and fix the rod/bolt/whatever and fix it in the raised position?



Here is my pop-up door, in the open position. I'm using para-cord that I threaded down through the hardware cloth, and tied around the big eye bolt on the top edge of the door. You can't see it from this picture, but the cord goes up to another eye bolt just below the roof, and then makes a 45 degree right turn to the corner of the coop...



Where it runs along the back side (closest to the house) to another eyebolt and then down to a tie down bracket. So, not only do I not only not have to go IN the run to open the door, I don't have to be on that side of the coop at all to open it. I got the idea from other postings here on BYC, I've seen several varieties illustrated.

I understand that you WANT good manners out of Atlas, but this something like this, or the other mechanisms folk here have used might protect your husband while you work on the whole manners thing with Mr. Restless And Hormonal...

Just a thought I had.

 

[speckledhen]

Quote:

He is that!

Minflick, thank you for your suggestion. I'm not sure with this one, the way DH constructed it, but I'll show your picture to him and see if it could be tweaked to do that. Things have loosened up here with the plans and as soon as we have a cover over that pen, the Big Move will take place and Atlas will move back into the old hens' coop when they vacate to go to the current bantam coop, and the 9 bantams will move into this coop where Atlas is living. Musical coops, don't ya just love it?

Welcome to BYC, by the way. And I love the purple coop! The inside of the current bantam coop is lavender and seafoam green, right off the Oops paint shelf. The old hens may go all bug-eyed when they see that!

 

[Minflick]

SpeckledHen,

It's mauve... It was going to be pale pink with mauve trim, because DH SAID I could paint it pink with purple polka dots if I wanted - it was MY BABY entirely. And I ran with that idea. Unfortunately, the pink was not the pale and faint pink I thought it was, it was bubblegum pink, and I HATED it. So, the mauve, of which I had only a quart, got stretched as far as I could squeeze the can. Luckily, it was the 3rd paint layer over the OSB, so it did not soak in, it spread nicely! When Ace Hardware tells you their paint with primer in it will cover nicely, they are dead serious! That stuff was like painting with yogurt, where another gallon I bought at another chain was nearly as thin as milk. The next time I have to paint anything, I'm going back to Ace, for sure.



This was taken at dusk, at it's least offensive. It was MUCH brighter and more obnoxious than it looks here. Pre run, pre pop-up door.

Your musical coops sounds like the musical bedrooms we did with our girls when they were small. We had some interesting paint colors for them too!

Melinda