The Quack Shack

[Trimurtisan]

If you have lots of time on your hands and want to see an abundance of eye candy visit porters site and see the different color varieties he's got. Don't get too hooked on any variety until you know it's one available without restrictions. https://www.porterturkeys.com/ If you hover over color variety you can click on each one and he'll generally have pictures of the poults and adults. He's also got one of the best turkey genetics calculators out there.

Holy crap Bob! Do you have any idea how big that itch just got?! Good grief, he has a LOT of colors!

 

[rjohns39]

Holy crap Bob! Do you have any idea how big that itch just got?! Good grief, he has a LOT of colors!

I don't think anyone will argue with me when I say he's the best at color purity in the country. A lot of folks jump on his reject sales as even those who don't meet his standards are way superior than anything you can find in a hatchery. Just know that poults can be tricky for the first 8 weeks and they need a starter comparable to your ducks. at least 24-28% protein, higher levels of niacin, lysine, and meth. Young poults are very curious and find quite inventive ways to commit suicide. I like to put a few week old chicks in with the poults to help teach them to stay out of trouble. But those chicks will never re-join the flock and will stay with their turkey kids.

 

[Trimurtisan]

I don't think anyone will argue with me when I say he's the best at color purity in the country. A lot of folks jump on his reject sales as even those who don't meet his standards are way superior than anything you can find in a hatchery. Just know that poults can be tricky for the first 8 weeks and they need a starter comparable to your ducks. at least 24-28% protein, higher levels of niacin, lysine, and meth. Young poults are very curious and find quite inventive ways to commit suicide. I like to put a few week old chicks in with the poults to help teach them to stay out of trouble. But those chicks will never re-join the flock and will stay with their turkey kids.

He has a sale going on right now, but there's a 15 minimum and that's a bit much for me right now. Im always hopeful for the future though. Choosing which one I liked would have been a lot easier when I thought there was only five colors LOL.

Being I'm considering starting my chicken flock over with larger fowl, would you see any problem with raising all of the baby chicks and poults together at the same time? I have no idea how many numbers I would be considering of each though.

I really love the bantams, but I just don't think they're going to work out here. I could be putting the cart in front of the horse by saying that but I highly doubt any hawks going to fly away with a turkey or large chicken.

 

[rjohns39]

He has a sale going on right now, but there's a 15 minimum and that's a bit much for me right now. Im always hopeful for the future though. Choosing which one I liked would have been a lot easier when I thought there was only five colors LOL.

Being I'm considering starting my chicken flock over with larger fowl, would you see any problem with raising all of the baby chicks and poults together at the same time? I have no idea how many numbers I would be considering of each though.

I really love the bantams, but I just don't think they're going to work out here. I could be putting the cart in front of the horse by saying that but I highly doubt any hawks going to fly away with a turkey or large chicken.

As a general rule, I brood chicks and poults separately other than the sacrificial mentors. Once full grown or at least 8 weeks old, I maintain a combined flock. There will occasionally be issues but not that many. A hawk will make short work of a young poult, who will likely stare at them in awe as they lose their head. Once the turkeys get size, the standard 3 1/2 hawk will think better of attacking them. But don't kid yourself, that same hawk can easily take your 8lbs chicken's head and keep right on going. I'm not sure how much of a deterrent the turkeys really are. I've had few hawk problems since I've had them. I did have a barred owl kill one of my mentor cockerels who at 4lbs was defending his 15 pound turkey kids. He made the mistake of coming back to eat more of the cockerel and the turkeys turned him into a midnight snack. All I found the next morning was the body of my cockerel and the wings, feathers and head of the owl.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Ughh, it's about anything but comfortable right now. We had a big storm yesterday that flooded the shack, so all 17 ducklings stayed in the living room last night. I'll just put it this way, nobody slept in this morning. Between those guys and A'pollo crowing, also in the living room oh, it was quite the spectacle.

Right about now!

Miss "Pretty in Pink" stretching her wings a bit. Her bill is somewhat losing the pink color. I'm going to love her no matter what she looks like, but I really hope that she's getting the gray/stone look that some of them do. As of today, her name is Pip, for "Pretty in Pink" all credit goes to Patti for that.
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I had the younger ducks in the same brooder with a divider for about 2 weeks, and the last 2 days they have been together. I'm happy to report there has not been any fighting. I did scare them at one point and a smaller lady was knocked over though. Would you guys say they are big enough to be together, or should I keep them separate for a bit longer?
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I've also collected the boards fron a 20x10 foot deck my new neighbor is replacing. Offered to pressure wash it for him so it would look nicer, but he decided he wanted to replace it, so I asked if I could have the wood. There's a couple boards that are probably not going to be used, but in general most of them are in decent shape. They just need a good cleaning. What's in the background of the pictures is only about a third of the wood.

For the Ayam Cemani, I am really digging these 2. Putting the Rarity aside, they are very docile and sweet. The rooster in particular is already a lap bird. They both have very beautiful translucent coloring in the light, but again the rooster excels in that department.

I'll try and grab some more pictures today, but this is the hen yesterday during our storm. I was giving all the chickens their oral dose of corid when the sky is decided to fall on us and she was already inside. So she had a little bit of R&R in the restroom. Flash, and no flash, she's awfully dark lol.
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Also, with the help of @casportpony I found out, they have lice. I'll be honest it's a bit frustrating taking a crash course in how to care for my chickens, which is my own fault, what is extremely nice to have people willing and able to help. Thank you Kathy!

Also a big thank you to miss Patti. If y'all were to call me stubborn, I would have no defense. So thank you for recommending that I talked to Kathy about the health of my birds. Both of you have saved me and extraordinary amount of stress, and I'm very grateful.

​

Ohh my gosh so pretty!! Hey if all the ducks are getting along then they are big enough to all be together. And your welcome Kathy is a wealth of critter knowledge. Glad things are going good again with your flock. Mites yep I’ve had em too. Not fun. Well I didn’t have them but my chickens did.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I had been told if you let your chickens hatch Guineas they will teach them to go into roost at night true or false?

 

[Trimurtisan]

As a general rule, I brood chicks and poults separately other than the sacrificial mentors. Once full grown or at least 8 weeks old, I maintain a combined flock. There will occasionally be issues but not that many. A hawk will make short work of a young poult, who will likely stare at them in awe as they lose their head. Once the turkeys get size, the standard 3 1/2 hawk will think better of attacking them. But don't kid yourself, that same hawk can easily take your 8lbs chicken's head and keep right on going. I'm not sure how much of a deterrent the turkeys really are. I've had few hawk problems since I've had them. I did have a barred owl kill one of my mentor cockerels who at 4lbs was defending his 15 pound turkey kids. He made the mistake of coming back to eat more of the cockerel and the turkeys turned him into a midnight snack. All I found the next morning was the body of my cockerel and the wings, feathers and head of the owl.

Bob, just so you know. Your stories consistently shock me. Maybe I should just start raising hawks! Besides the whole legality thing.

 

[Trimurtisan]

I had been told if you let your chickens hatch Guineas they will teach them to go into roost at night true or false?

I'm not sure on the hatching part, but the guineas and bantams do indeed roost together at night. Although the guineas where roosting before the bantams where by a couple of days.

 

[Trimurtisan]

Ohh my gosh so pretty!! Hey if all the ducks are getting along then they are big enough to all be together. And your welcome Kathy is a wealth of critter knowledge. Glad this are going good again with your flock. Muted yep I’ve had em too. Not fun. Well I did t have them but my chickens did.

Awesome! That's the idea I was going with. Even when they shared the brooder that was divided, I didn't see any signs of trouble. ie trying to peck through the hardware cloth, or extreme eyeballing. They have not fought over food or water either which was my main concern.

 

[Trimurtisan]

@Miss Lydia prior to doing the corid treatment, I was working on training the guineas to go back to the coop via releasing only half of them (right now everyone is on lock down). Sadly that is only 1 in and 1 out right now, but the one that was out would not go farther than a few feet from the cage. When I opened the door and sat back to watch, it jumped back in the cage within about 3-4 minutes. The flock mentality seems to be very extreme with them. When I brought them inside to do the oral doses, whichever one was in the cage was screaming till the other returned.