The NFC B-Day Chat Thread

[N F C]

Howdy Sour!

 

[sourland]

Hey, Debby, well the crazy weather is now giving us a nice spell of Indian Summer. Beautiful weather for the Full Moon Dance last night.

 

[drumstick diva]

Sour what happened to your "Broody dance?" Or are you done for the fall/winter?

 

[drumstick diva]

ow just remembered you said "full moon dance," must cover my eyes, It can't be unseen

 

[sourland]

ow just remembered you said "full moon dance," must cover my eyes, It can't be unseen

'Tis a sight to behold. No cameras allowed, all parts copyrighted.

 

[N F C]

Speaking on behalf of my avatar...

I think this group has all 3 covered, lol.

 

[bruceha2000]

Good morning!


@sourland as a disinterested 3rd party, can you keep track on the "whose Wellie lays first" contest? We have @bruceha2000 with a girl that hatched on April 24th and @sunflour with a girl that hatched April 25th. Fart eggs, shell-less eggs, and the like don't count...these have to be 'real' eggs.

And the winner is ... Cassiopeia at 23 weeks 2 days.
OK, she doesn't count for the contest, she is an EE. But she laid a nice 42g blue-green egg today

 

[JaeG]

And the winner is ... Cassiopeia at 23 weeks 2 days.
OK, she doesn't count for the contest, she is an EE. But she laid a nice 42g blue-green egg today

Congratulations ! That first egg is always so exciting!

I have quail disappearing, thankfully just my spare Japanese quail males, but both my beautiful, unusually coloured ones have disappeared. It can only be rats getting in (or the bantams they live with having a midnight snack!) but I can't see any holes. They've had a go at the hardware cloth and actually broken some of it but not enough that they could get through. So I'll have to take everything apart tomorrow and see if I can find evidence of a break in!

My Pinkie Pie (Bourkes parakeet) has hatched 3 chicks so far. One had ended up at the other end of the box somehow so hopefully me moving it back means it's safe and warm now. I'll have to check on them again. She did have 7 fertile eggs so I'll be interested to see if she manages to hatch them all. I really hope not as that's a lot of work for her and her partner, Lucky.

 

[drumstick diva]

For small birds/babies they sure can cause a lot of grief. Shame on them. You take such great care and sleep less nights raising them. I think I remember Pinkie Pie, is she the little "sweetie." Lucky created a lot of work for himself being so studly.

 

[JaeG]

For small birds/babies they sure can cause a lot of grief. Shame on them. You take such great care and sleep less nights raising them. I think I remember Pinkie Pie, is she the little "sweetie." Lucky created a lot of work for himself being so studly.

Pinkie Pie is the mother of all my Bourkes so far. My other hen (who is a beautiful Rubino, but quite cranky) is yet to produce young. Which is unfortunate as I have another Rubino hen waiting for a mate from them so that they can give me Lutino and Rubino beauties. Patience is a virtue (that I don't possess in great quantities).

I felt that one of Pinkie's chicks was getting buried in the fine shavings I had in the nestbox. So I annoyed her greatly by taking them out and adding some chunkier stuff. They snuggled up to the hot water bottle I took out with me (SO cute). Another egg was unzipping so I was quick, but I kept the other eggs out to check them and they all look a couple of days off hatching. So guess where they ended up - yup, in my incubator (which has my last batch of Button quail eggs in it due to hatch in a couple of days, so it was all set up for hatching chicks). Yup, there's no hope for me! I'll be returning them to Miss Pink as it's warm enough now and there'll be enough bodies to keep each other warm, but I may have to take some and hand rear them from 2 weeks old to take the pressure off. I just couldn't bear the thought of those wriggly little bodies I could see when I candled not hatching just because their older siblings hatched first. I mean, they might have been alright but the odds weren't in their favour.

For all those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing a Bourkes chick here's a photo of one I completely hand reared that hatched in July (right around the time we were getting quite bad morning frosts - Pinkie Pie had been squeezing herself into finch sized nestboxes so I had to give her a bigger one - crazy!). It's siblings hatched first and it would've perished if I hadn't stuck it in my incubator. (Now do you understand how hopeless I am?!)