Oh how I had wished you had been there too! I was so awestruck that I was like a doe in the head lights!
White Silkies are my first love. Karen loves them too. She has two white pens that the eggs she sells come out of and my trio are hatched from. My boy is out of a pen where the roo is by Shorty Polston. The hens in that pen are of Amiee Croger breeding I believe. My two pullets are out of the Catdance line. These pullets are unrelated to the first pen so they compliment each other beautifully. She told me the whites from these pairings were doing very well in shows around the country. We had wonderful chats about genetics that I do understand. You have to breed a lot of chickens to get the special ones. Just like in breeding Arabian horses, thorough breds, or dogs. Some off spring will be pet, some will be breeders, and some will be champions. She advised me never to cull too soon with Silkies except for obvious DQ things. She told me a story about the lady that developed the first Paints in Silkies. Many in the Silkie Club poo poo'd this color. They advised to cull all of them and scoffed at her efforts. Years later those same nay sayers were beating down her door to buy those Paints. Karen advised me that if I ever get an unusual colored chick to keep it and see what it becomes. It's how special things develop in the poultry world. Great advice I will take to heart.
While we were visiting, Karen's husband arrived with a load of bagged pine shavings, and bagged Purina feed. No layer at all. 26% Sun shine recipe. protein crumble. All her pens are dirt floor based with shavings except breeding boxes and in an upper level of one of the barns. I think they were wood floors with shavings. There were chickens EVERYWHERE! I couldn't turn around without seeing some spectacular roo paired up with an equally spectacular hen. She does a lot of pair breeding.
Pairs in the car port where shavings and grain bags were delivered.
My jaw hit my chest at the abundance of beautiful birds. Out of hundreds of Silkies, I only saw maybe one or two that looked like the crest had been picked. Most pens averaged between seven and fifteen hens to one roo. Some pens had maybe four hens to a roo. Each pen had one or two nest boxes on the floor. No lip or shelves. Many pens had large beams for roosting.
Some had ramps that went up to a second nest on shelves. It was all very farmer and chicken easily accessible.
This was one of the last pens in the last barn. I died! That color Lavender was unexpected! The picture doesn't do it justice. In person it almost glowed. It was ethereal. I had dreams about this pen last night. Karen told me about the cock but I can't remember. This pen amazed me. So did the Porcelain pen next to it.
Look at the gorgeous color on that roo! Those hens were eye popping gorgeous too.
This barn I believe were the project pens. The first pen I failed to get a picture of. It had a dozen or more birds she told me were destined to be shown. Maybe. The big show will be in April. I will try and get to it to take pictures of any birds Karen enters.
I will be changing my own barn set up in ways I saw her do. My barn is the equivalent of four of her pens. All of her barns faced large pasture and sun exposure. It was raining and snowing while we were there. Very cold. Some pens had heat lamps. Some did not.
My DH gazing up at the other barns. The big barn is actually two in one. Her Arabian shelters in the open stall with the gate in the middle. We are standing in front the lower barn full of the pens where sale eggs are produced.
Catdance Farm is way off the beaten path. almost a 45 minute drive from I 5 interstate. Winding narrow roads through mountains. Spectacular country but wild up there.
One of the many streams we crossed on our drive up the mountains.
I have no idea how many eggs or birds Catdance sells but I'm guessing a LOT! She and her husband work non stop on this farm. They don't have help that I could tell except when they go to shows. That is not often she tells me because they must travel so far and hired help is expensive.
It is a serious breeding facility. There is a very good reason her eggs and birds are in such high demand. She raises no other variety of chicken. Only Silkies. Her entire focus is breeding. I learned many lessons from that knowledge alone. It takes the hatching and raising of hundreds of chicks over many years to reach the high level of quality she has attained. Every inch of that large farm is devoted to Silkies. A breeder can never sit back and rest on past accomplishments. There is no such thing as the perfect Silkie. The breeding operation going on there that I witnessed made a huge impression on me. I'm going to try and keep that Cat dance record of excellence going in my very tiny flock of Silkies. I feel incredibly fortunate to get the chance.
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Very cool!!
