The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[texasmomma]

skimming through today's stuff.. I heard mention of Splash.

It was me. My girls named one of our first chickens Splash. She is a black australorp and when she first came to us, she had a black and white spotted head. She's all black now, but they didn't know that is how she would turn out.

Your birds are beautiful.

 

[Melabella]

I asked to be put on a waiting list for Heritage RIR. March delivery of ten fourteen day old beauties. Possibly eighteen hatching eggs as well. If they are from the rare Ricky Bates line? Even better. Very possibly I would have the only ones in Washington State. There are so few that raise these pure strains. It will give me a start to improve and keep them going in this corner of the world. Maybe even show again someday in a few years. Happy happy day!

What Delisha said,, yes,, Congratulations Mumsy!

 

[texasmomma]

For those of you like me who didn't know what Pysanka was.....(she even supplies the link)

We were in Macedonia one year over Easter. We went out to dinner the night before Easter at a very nice Italian restaurant. It was near downtown and one of the swankier places. As we were leaving, we were handed one of these eggs for each of the girls. They were so very beautiful. It was a wonderful gift and a memory we will always treasure. My dad's wife is from Russia and she also loves these, but I don't think she knows how to make them. I should figure it out, but I'm sure I don't have the time.

 

[Melabella]

We were in Macedonia one year over Easter. We went out to dinner the night before Easter at a very nice Italian restaurant. It was near downtown and one of the swankier places. As we were leaving, we were handed one of these eggs for each of the girls. They were so very beautiful. It was a wonderful gift and a memory we will always treasure. My dad's wife is from Russia and she also loves these, but I don't think she knows how to make them. I should figure it out, but I'm sure I don't have the time.

What a beautiful memory allright! So nice.. Do they still have them? So incredibly beautiful!

 

[Pullet Surprise]

For those of you like me who didn't know what Pysanka was.....(she even supplies the link)

Those are SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!!

 

[texasmomma]

What a beautiful memory allright! So nice.. Do they still have them? So incredibly beautiful!

They do not. We lost almost everything when the house flooded a little over two years ago. We still talk about our time in Macedonia with fondness.

 

[texasmomma]

Dunno what I was complaining about. I need to learn patience, because we got our first egg today! It is small, but looks great. She pecked at it, but didn't go through the membrane. I figure that this is normal, yes? She has been on layer feed for a while.

 

[Mtn Laurel]

We were in Macedonia one year over Easter. We went out to dinner the night before Easter at a very nice Italian restaurant. It was near downtown and one of the swankier places. As we were leaving, we were handed one of these eggs for each of the girls. They were so very beautiful. It was a wonderful gift and a memory we will always treasure. My dad's wife is from Russia and she also loves these, but I don't think she knows how to make them. I should figure it out, but I'm sure I don't have the time.

What a wonderful experience and gift. I'd not heard of Pysanka eggs until my son went on a 2 week mission trip to Ukraine. To learn a little about the culture, the mission group held a workshop on making pysanka and I attended. It is quite the art form and I would think it would take years and years of working at it to get to a proficient level.

The eggs are raw, you do not hard boil them. The egg yolk and white are expected to dry up over the lifetime of the egg. The process involves using a tool that looks a bit like an old fashioned fountain pen, dragging it through wax and then drawing a wax design on a dyed egg. You then dip in a 2nd layer of color and add more designs. The area with the wax won't take the dye and you begin to get a stained-glass like effect with different colors peeking through. Keep repeating the drawing/dying process until you're done. I was HORRIBLE at it, couldn't even get my name written on an egg.

Luckily, my son brought me one back from Ukraine. MUCH easier getting one that way!

 

[stonykill]

It was me. My girls named one of our first chickens Splash. She is a black australorp and when she first came to us, she had a black and white spotted head. She's all black now, but they didn't know that is how she would turn out.

Your birds are beautiful.

thank you. Black Australop's are fantastic birds. I only have 1 but I do have 2 Black Australop/Sumatra mix roo's. Handsome guys. You can see one of them in the pictures I put up

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote: Pysanka/Pysanky is a very unique art form, very tedious, using dyes and wax, (covering most of the art work with wax and adding only one color of dye at a time), with a lot of traditional symbols and meaning put into the designs. Traditionally tons of history and meaning goes into each and every egg.

The woman I sent my eggs to had originally requested some Guineas eggs over on the Guinea Fowl forum here on BYC, which I sent her a few dozen of as well. She was more than happy to trade finished product for blown eggs... and while I'd love to have a whole collection of Pysanky eggs, I asked her if she could make a custom egg for me out of one of my own Guinea's eggs instead, just something simple, but unique. She did, and was happy to, using pics of my birds to base her artwork on. She also sent a couple extra eggs for my Mom, with a beautiful Willow and Tulip design on them which my absolutely Mom loves. Very pretty.
Here's a couple of (quick and poor quality, with a weird glare) pics of the pretty egg she painted for me:




You can look her work up on etsy.com if you'd like, do a search for GoldenEggPysanky over there (hope I do not get in trouble for posting that!).
My apologies for straying so far off from Natural Chicken Keeping