did you see mine? or did it get lost in the shuffle during the Quiz?
Do your australorps pick on your white Hen .? I have a Australorp Roo he picks on the white hen ...all our other hens are shades of brown ..Threw some icky tomatoes out and snapped some pics while the flock devoured them:
These are the before and after pics of FF. You can sure pick Penelope, representative of the whole "before" group, out of this crowd
Everyone is as fat and sassy as I have ever seen them!
YAY for FF!!!
This is it, Bee, if you missed it, earlier.Ok, now I am finished failing the breeding quiz on the OT thread, I can answer the question here.
(IMO, this seems like a much more important question and I grasp the importance of knowing the answer to it)
Why do I keep chickens?
I keep chickens because:
1. eggs. My husband is an egg fanatic.
2. Meat. I looooove chicken in its many varied forms, and I prefer to eat food I have seen to myself. I know (as much as a free ranger wants to know) what my flock has been eating, how they live and what condition they were in at time of butchering.
3. I live in a place where I have room and suitable conditions to keep them.
4. I enjoy keeping them. They make me laugh every day, and I believe this makes me a more relaxed person.
5. I want a sustainable flock of chickens from which I can make more chickens to make eggs, to make meat, and for enjoyment. I chose my breed, Black Australorps, for their reputation as a layer, and also because they breed true- ie, breed a BA hen and a BA roo, and they will always make BA chicks. They are heavy enough a breed to make decent eating (there is merely my husband and I to feed) and I get aprox 3 meals per mature cockeral. They are also delicious.
On a rather foo foo note, they are also really curvy and glossy and pretty out in my yard. Sorry. I know that isn't very OT, but it's true.
I have also added a couple of CW pullets because I would like some white eggs for the house. I can't sell them, but we can sure eat them! They have a reputation for making lots of pretty, very large white eggs, and being less spastic than their hatchery WL parentage. They are much lighter birds, but I imagine, when their day comes, they will stew up just as fine as the BAs.
I will not be hatching their eggs.
No, because they were raised along side the baby BAs, by a broody. They don't get picked on any more than the same-age BA youngsters.
Thanks, Bee. I got lucky (blessed) with the breed, and have applied myself to learning from people who make sense when they talk!Yes and you already have one of the best breeds I could ever recommend. You are light years ahead of most people starting out.
I knew I didn't know anything about hybridized layers so I didn't feel too bad I didn't know much about them! I was delighted for the chance to learn from the Masters.You didn't fail, dear. You tried and that took guts. How could you all know all that stuff? Can't learn it in books and it comes with years of doing this thing...and the OTs were giving everyone a shortcut to success. That's worth so much in the chicken world..you have no idea.
You also have no idea how nervous I was to have to take it after you guys did...Fred expects more from me and I got some points off for saying his bird will never be an exceptional layer. Then I find out it lays the best for him. Oops.
I have different ideas what makes for exceptional and for me it's the BAs and WRs. They lay for wonderfully for much longer than a production hen, reproduce themselves and you still have something to eat when they are done. Not to mention, they look absolutely beautiful while they are doing all this...for a woman, that counts. Girls like to see pretty chickens on the lawn.
To me, that's exceptional.
